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.
[Comedies], in the ancient world, were regarded as of a higher rank than tragedy, of a deeper truth, of a more difficult realization, of a sounder structure, and of a revelation more complete. The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. ...Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachment to the forms...
Cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the Muse.
Abstraction is real, probably more real than nature.
My best songs were written very quickly. Just about as much time as it takes to write it down is about as long as it takes to write it...In writing songs I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie...It's not me, it's the songs. I'm just the postman, I deliver the songs...I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.
People are meant to be certain places, and I think I'm meant to be on a sound stage doing situation comedy.
Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.
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