I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that photography is not just about capturing reality, but about expressing one's personal interpretations and creative visions of the world.
Man Ray's quote highlights the idea that art, and specifically photography, is an expression of the artist's perspective rather than a mere replication of nature. It suggests that a photograph is not simply a picture of what exists in the world, but rather a manifestation of the photographerβs internal vision, creativity, and emotional response to what they observe, which transforms the mundane into something uniquely personal and artistic.
In practice
For a photography exhibition, this quote can be used to describe the artist's perspective.
I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.
I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.
l photograph what l do not wish to paint and l paint that which l cannot photograph.
Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.
Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival.
Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.
I didn't want to make cinema so a person forgets himself and has a lot of fun. 'I forget myself, I am a little poor consumer.' I wanted to make a picture where someone who sees it say, 'This is me! This is me!'
I get so tired of people saying, 'Oh, you only make fantasy films and this and that', and I'm like, 'Well no, fantasy is reality', that's what Lewis Carroll showed in his work.
Let the subject generate its own photographs. Become a camera.
I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money.' Yes, I think everybody should be paid handsomely; I insist on it, and I pay people who work for me, or with me, handsomely.
For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda.
Art is very tricky because it's what you do for yourself. It's much harder for me to make those works than the monuments or the architecture.
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