There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.
Minor WhiteRead
Some of the young photographers today enter photography where I leave off. My "grandchildren" astound me. What I worked for they seem to be born with. So I wonder where Their affirmations of Spirit will lead. My wish for them is that their unfolding proceeds to fullness of Spirit, however astonishing or anguished their lives.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the evolving nature of photography and the admiration for new generations of photographers.
Minor White expresses a sense of wonder at the talent and creativity of young photographers who have taken the art of photography to new heights. He acknowledges that what he struggled to achieve in his own work seems innate to these younger artists, and he hopes their journeys will lead to profound personal and artistic growth, regardless of the challenges they may face.
In practice
This quote would be inspiring to share at a photography exhibition highlighting young artists.
There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.
While we cannot describe its appearance (the equivalent), we can define its function. When a photograph functions as an Equivalent we can say that at that moment, and for that person the photograph acts as a symbol or plays the role of a metaphor for something that is beyond the subject photographed.
The reason why we want to remember an image varies: because we simply 'love it,' or dislike it so intensely that it becomes compulsive, or because it has made us realize something about ourselves, or has brought about some slight change in us. Perhaps the reader can recall some image, after the seeing of which he has never been quite the same.
One does not photograph something simply for 'what it is', but 'for what else it is.
One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.
If all your life means to you is water running over rocks, then photograph it, but I want to create something that would not have existed without me.
My view of actors is that basically they're all harmless lunatics who'd be on the psychiatrist's couch, except that we get this sort of catharsis every six months or so, and we go and be absolutely someone else.
If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats
Chanting just hits you and you want to be a part of it. That’s the point of this whole thing. That’s what cuts through all the ‘stuff’. You get lit up. You don’t have to know what it means.
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school. Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students, music as painting? They knew how to do that.
I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.
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