Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of originality in photography, suggesting it should not simply mimic other art forms.
Berenice Abbott's quote reflects the idea that photography, as an art form, must develop its own unique identity rather than relying on the styles or techniques of other mediums such as painting or film. It advocates for authenticity and creative independence, encouraging photographers to explore their own vision and voice in their work.
In practice
During a photography exhibition, this quote can be used to inspire budding photographers to find their own style.
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.
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.
Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties. The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself.
Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.
Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
For me, the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny. Whether working with a human figure or a still life, I am deeply aware of my spiritual connection with it. In my life, as in my work, I am motivated by a great yearning for balance and harmony beyond the realm of human experience, reaching for the essence of oneness with the Universe.
I am not trying to be a historian and a dramatist; I'm a dramatist, a dramatic historian, or one who does a dramatic interpretation of history.
In my brain were stored a thousand pictures.
There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that donβt have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Donβt have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.
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