First you study photography, then you practice photography, then you serve photography, and finally one becomes photography.
Ralph GibsonRead
Even though fixed in time, a photograph evokes as much feeling as that which comes from music or dance. Whatever the mode - from the snapshot to the decisive moment to multi-media montage - the intent and purpose of photography is to render in visual terms feelings and experiences that often elude the ability of words to describe. In any case, the eyes have it, and the imagination will always soar farther than was expected.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A photograph captures emotions and experiences that words often cannot express.
In this quote, Ralph Gibson highlights the powerful emotional resonance of photography, suggesting that images can evoke deep feelings similar to those conjured by music or dance. He emphasizes that regardless of the photographic technique, the ultimate goal is to portray feelings and experiences visually, often surpassing the limitations of language. Furthermore, he implies that the viewer's interpretation and imagination can expand beyond what is initially perceived.
Themes
PhotographyEmotionArtImaginationExperience
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a photography exhibition to emphasize the emotional power of images.
More from Ralph Gibson
All quotes →Similar quotes
The great men of music close periods; they do not inaugurate them. The pioneer work, the finding of new paths, is left to smaller men.
Ralph Vaughan WilliamsRead
You have a strange relationship with calamity when you're a writer: you write about it; as an artist, you objectify and fetishize it. You render life into material, and that's a creepy thing to do.
Tony KushnerRead
Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.
Orson WellesRead
I leave you free to imagine any dialogue you please. Choose whatever may charm you. Have it, if you like, that they hear the voice of the blood, or that they fall in love at first sight... Conceive the wildest improbabilities. Have it that the depths of their beings are thrilled at accosting each other in slang. Tangle them suddenly in a swift embrace or a brotherly kiss. Do whatever you like.
Jean GenetRead
Fiction leaves us so much work to do, allows the individual so much input; you have to see, you have to hear, you have to taste the madeleine, and while you are seemingly passive in your chair, you have to travel.
Hilary MantelRead
I have all these friends who just love therapy, and I always say the reason that I'm absolutely not in therapy is because then I wouldn't have anything to write.
Shonda RhimesRead