What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera (the lens) notes with relentless fidelity.
Interpretation
The camera captures details that humans often overlook, highlighting the importance of careful observation.
In this quote, Berenice Abbott emphasizes that while humans may observe their surroundings superficially, the camera has the ability to document reality with precision and clarity. This reveals the value of art and technology in capturing truths that our own eyes might miss, encouraging a deeper appreciation for detail and observation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a photography workshop to inspire students to observe their surroundings more closely.
To chart a course, one must have a direction. In reality, the eye is no better than the philosophy behind it. The photographer creates, evolves a better, a more selective, more acute seeing eye by looking ever more sharply at what is going on in the world.
Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.
Actually, documentary pictures include every subject in the world - good, bad, indifferent. I have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.
Does not the very word 'creative' mean to build, to initiate, to give out, to act - rather than to be acted upon, to be subjective? Living photography is positive in its approach, it sings a song of life - not death.
The camera is no more an instrument of preservation, the image is.
Photography helps people to see.
I think what's really the most ideal thing is for the player themselves, within their own imagination, to carve out what they view as being the essence of the character.
But I really resist categories β that naming is a closing down of meaning. Women's art, political art β those categorisations perpetuate a certain kind of marginality which I'm resistant to. But I absolutely define myself as a feminist.
People always ask what a book is about, as if it has to be about something. I don't want to write books that lend themselves to that sort of description. My books are more a kind of breaking-down.
As a musician I'm kind of nomadic, Waldo-like. I show up in different places, and I'm witness to unbelievable things.
I would rather be on the set than doing anything.
I consider skateboarding an art form, a lifestyle and a sport. 'Action sport' would be the least offensive categorization.
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