j zorn's photostream  

Flak Photo: www.flakphoto.com/archives/6333_1646490288/258573
Unless You Will: www.unlessyouwill.com/#489750/ISSUE-7

check out my favorites. there are obviously a lot of talented people posting here.


"i could take a cow and implant a camera in it and let it amble around in the city or in its own domain. If the camera was programmed to go off at an indeterminate series of moments, the samplings would be fantastic. We're not so damned inspired every day! If we rely on what we meet, some inspiration will arise. As an example, if i go into a grocery store... if i am smart I will take home what is best that day. i will not say that i want to buy apples today or that i want to buy oranges today... i buy the best of what there is that day. if the beef looks good, i'm not going to buy lamb... The point of this is: if you work this way, if you live this way, if you just exist this way, you will find that by some strange coincidence, you will have brought together a number of things which make a magnificent meal. you consume this thing with champagne if you can afford it, and if not, you consume it just with enthusiasm." - Frederick Sommer, from "an extemporaneous talk at the art institute of chicago", Aperture vol 16, no. 2



Westerbeck: I remember hearing Garry (Winogrand) and the rest of you often calling pictures "tough" or "beautiful." Why was "tough" such a key word for you?

Meyerowitz: "Tough" meant it was an uncompromising image, something that came from your gut, out of instinct, raw, of the moment, something that couldn't be described in any other way. So it was TOUGH. Tough to like, tough to see, tough to make, tough to understand. The tougher they were the more beautiful they became. It was our language.

from "Bystander: A History of Street Photography" by Colin Westerbeck & Joel Meyerowitz



"I'm always looking outside, trying to look inside. Trying to say something that¹s true. But maybe nothing is really true. Except what¹s out there. And what¹s out there is always changing." -Robert Frank



"Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." - Walker Evans



AS: What do you honestly think of the state of contemporary photography?

TP: What do you think I think? Ultimately, I think that you have to have a vision of the world. I don’t feel hopeless about it; Philip-Lorca Dicorcia is a significant figure.

AS: It seems like a lot of contemporary photography is about photography, more than anything else.

TP: Yes, but in a sense, no one’s work is more about photography than Garry Winogrand – it’s just that he had a very interesting view of photography, which was incredibly complex. I do talk to the students at Yale about using a small camera more and more. Taking so many pictures taught me a lot, even unconsciously, about being out in the world and using a camera to make pictures. It also taught me a lot about different picture forms, and the use of space. Many students today are completely ignorant about that, so the pictures are generally something plopped in the center of the frame and digitally printed to 40x50. I shouldn’t castigate the students, but it turns up in the galleries too, and it’s just not very interesting; it’s not very satisfying as a visual experience. Maybe it’s simply a case of finding a number of interestingly tormented people. Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander - they were all lunatics.

AS=Aaron Schuman
TP=Tod Papageorge



"Stop making sense." - David Byrne



"Just go out and do the work, even if your not sure where it's going. Get up and do some work, any work, and something may come of it. Make something and react to what you've made in order to find a path." - Harry Callahan.



"Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of the crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings. To capture some of this-- I suppose that's lyricism."
-Josef Sudek



"The best part of us is not what we see, it's what we feel. We are what we feel. We are not what we look at . . .. We're not our eyeballs, we're our mind. People believe their eyeballs and they're totally wrong . . .. That's why I consider most photographs extremely boring - just like Muzak, inoffensive, charming, another waterfall, another sunset. This time, colors have been added to protect the innocent. It's just boring. But that whole arena of one's experience - grief, loneliness - how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? This is what you are, not what you see. It's all sitting up here. I could do all my work sitting in my room. I don't have to go anywhere."

-Duane Michals