I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.
Interpretation
Photographs should challenge viewers and present new perspectives rather than simply replicating reality.
In this quote, Duane Michals emphasizes that the true artistry of photography lies in its ability to provoke thought and offer fresh insights into subjects, rather than merely capturing their appearances. He argues that anyone can take a straightforward picture, but it takes skill and creativity to reveal deeper understandings and new ways of seeing people through the lens of a camera.
In practice
A photography exhibit showcasing works that challenge traditional views of portraiture.
Photographers usually want to photograph facts and things. But I'm interested in the nature of the thing itself. A photograph of someone sleeping tells me nothing about their dream state; a photograph of a corpse tells me nothing about the nature of death. My work is about my life as an event, and I find myself to be very temporal, transient.
Flowers construct the most charming geometries: circles like the sun, ovals, cones, curlicues and a variety of triangular eccentricities, which when viewed with the eye of a magnifying glass seem a Lilliputian frieze of psychedelic silhouettes.
A lot of photographers walk around looking for something 'out there,' but I'm very much interested in what's 'in here.'
There are those photographers who have made a whole career doing commercial work but have never had a museum show, and then there are others who've only had museum shows but couldn't survive for five seconds in the real world of photography. But I've done absolutely everything.
Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man’s face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building—and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It’s the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing.
The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it's simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.
I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it.
With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.
I don't know what it's like for a book writer or a doctor or a teacher as they work to get established in their jobs, but for a singer, you've got to continue to grow or else you're just like last night's cornbread...stale and dry.
Colour is what gives jewels their worth. They light up and enhance the face. Nothing is more elegant than a black skirt and sweater worn with a sparkling multi-stoned necklace.
There are ways in which art can have a longer reach than politics.
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