#New York

“I was very sensitive to poverty, to children and people in need. I probably had a more compassionate way of looking at things”

 

~ Sabine Weiss
(1924-2021)

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“One day I wanted to make some nude photographs which I had never done before. Lisa had a very beautiful body and was not afraid of her body...she was used to "Nacktkultur"

 

~ Horst P. Horst

 

“I was always aware that Horst had a warm feeling for the personalty, the sexuality of me as a model. Even at our very first sitting when we were both so inexperienced, I felt lapped in calm and beauty and luxury and glamour-and yet as though I were in my own house, not just posing in it, but living in its myself”

 

 

~ Lisa Fonssagrives

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“Curiosity is everything. I don’t think you can create luck. You’re either lucky or you’re not. I don’t know if it’s really luck or if it’s just curiosity. I think the main ingredient, or a main ingredient for photography is curiosity. If you’re curious enough and if you get up in the morning and go out and take pictures, you’re likely to be more lucky than if you stay at home .”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt

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“It was a joyous route, such magnificent sights and human splendor along the way that difficulties magically effaced themselves. One regretted nothing and would have it no other way”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

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“I like the streets. I grew up in the streets”

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

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“Memories, that’s the thing about photography.. I look at the contact sheet and it brings back everything.. Whether I was tired, whether I was full of beans”

 

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

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“You should find these things yourself. You should never copy. I never look at other photographers’ work. You have to see it for yourself "

 

~ Horst P. Horst

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“New York is a city I loved, a city that forgives nothing but accepts everyone - a place of a thousand moods and vistas, of countless faces in a moving crowd, each one silently talking to you”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

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"When photography is good, it’s pretty interesting and when it is very good it is irrational and even magical…..nothing to do with the photographer’s conscious will or desire. When the photograph happens, it comes easily, as a gift that should not be questioned or analyzed."

 

~ Elliott Erwitt

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“The kinetic quality of New York, the kids, the dirt, the madness - I tried to find a photographic style that would come close to it. So I cropped, blurred, played with the negatives”

~ William Klein

“The thing the 60’s did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility”

~ John Lennon

"When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously”

 

~ Minor White
(1908-1976)

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"I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living."

 

~ John D Rockefeller

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“Sometimes, I’d take shots without aiming, just to see what happened. I’d rush into crowds. It must be close to what a fighter feels after jabbing and circling and getting hit when suddenly there’s an opening and Bang! Bang! Right on the button. It’s fantastic feeling”

 

~ William Klein

“Something catches your eye or your interest. You attack it in one way or observe it in some way and try and put it in some kind of form and take a picture. It’s as simple as that”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt
(1928 - 2023)

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“I’m known for fashion photography but in America, kids would go to college and get out and buy a second hand car and go across the country and discover America. I never did that. I went from New York to Paris and New York was my America”

 

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

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“A good photograph becomes something more than just a good photograph. It has meaning and value that extends beyond the medium itself. Something spiritual that reveals something about life”

 

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

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"I think that what you've got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it."

~ Burt Glinn

“The League taught me that no matter how original and talented the photographers vision might berth, ultimate success of the photograph was mutually dependent on the photographer and the world of reality around him or her. Not to ignore, but on the contrary to concentrate his or her talents on everyday working people and what was immediately around them in terms of living and environment”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

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“You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy”

 

~ Eliott Erwitt

“It never entered my mind that I was going to make it, but as I look back on my life I can see why I did. I made it because I had to always do something a little different. I made it because my taste was never bad. I had undying energy. If I did a picture, I couldn’t wait to see it. I always wanted to get things done as fast as possible. It’s going to be the way I want it. The model will meet my approval. They’re never going to force anybody down my throat. Every picture should be as good as I could make it.”

~ William Helburn
(1924-2020)

“What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera notes with relentless fidelity."

~ Berenice Abbott

 

"If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint. Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist and this inner life would result in his or her personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination”

 

~ Edward Hopper

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"My photographs are acts of eloquent homage and deep remorse about the city. I am profoundly moved by it’s lyric beauty and horrified by it’s cruelty and suffering"

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

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“You see, when models work with men, they strike up a pose and so on…..With me they were always totally relaxed, I was just a woman photographing another woman. And who was very relaxed as well.”

 

~ Lillian Bassman

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“I never had a “project”. I would go out and shoot, follow my eyes-- what they noticed. I tried to capture with my camera for others to see”

 

~ Helen Levitt (1913-2009)

“When I take pictures, I let reality decide what to do. I only take one when I’m deeply moved by what I see”

 

~ Louis Stettner (1922-2016)

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"Photography is a unique visual language that cannot be expressed in words. As a matter of fact, if it can be expressed in words, then it probably isn’t worth photographing."

 

~ Charles Harbutt

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“We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, anyone of which might say something significant”

 

~ Alfred Eisenstaedt

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"All I ask you to do is to listen with your eyes. The international language of jazz and photography need no special education or sophistication to be enjoyed."

 

~ William Claxton

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"A photograph is a collision between a person with a camera and reality. The photograph is typically as interesting as the collision is."

 

~ Charles Harbutt

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"I was not prepared for the brutal cold which froze my bones and reduced me to an inexpressive drooling zombie by the end of the ride. To be fair, I was warned that it might get a bit chilly, photographing above Manhattan in the middle of winter, while strapped to the outside of an open helicopter. For the most part, I could not feel my finger tips, so was unsure when I had even made a photograph. And, there were the rolling waves of nausea, (which I would rather not elaborate on), as the helicopter banked and circled, with my eyes stuck to the back of the camera viewfinder. I relied on the statistical law of probability that if I kept photographing, at least one picture might turn out ok. I loved this one of the Empire State Building, the moment I saw it on the contact sheet. There are copious other images from different angles and points of view, but I think this has a certain magic. Perhaps someday I will go back into the darkroom to print one or two of the other negatives, but first, I need to get warm."

 

~ Michael Kenna

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"I like people to be entertained, but I don't want it to be empty. I like to give some nourishment."

 

~ Fred Zinnemann
(1907-1997)

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“Every professional should remain always in his or her heart an amateur”

 

~ Alfred Eisenstaedt
(1898-1995)

 

“I can’t live one day without hearing music, playing it, studying it or thinking about it”

 

~ Leonard Bernstein
(1918-1990)

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“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

 

~ James Baldwin

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"The photograph came off as planned. What had seemed to some as too dangerous or difficult to accomplish, became my fantasy fulfilled, and my most memorable self–assigned photograph."

~ Ormond Gigli
(1925 - 2019)

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"If you ever saw me on a set—not now that I'm 94, but when I photographed for real, you know, on my feet—the moment I got interested in what I was doing, my shoes went off. I would get on the paper, dance barefoot, dance for the models, move in the way I wanted them to move, really dance barefoot in front of the camera, take on the body movements that I felt would get them to move—actually to dance in front of the camera."

 

~ Lillian Bassman
(1917 - 2012)

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"I think that what you've got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it"

~ Burt Glinn

"You always have two choices:
your commitment versus your fear"

~ Sammy Davis Jr.

"It’s up to us, as mothers and mother-figures, to give the girls in our lives the kind of support that keeps their flame lit and lifts up their voices — not necessarily with our own words, but by letting them find the words themselves.”

~ Michelle Obama
(Former First Lady of the United States)

“I photographed real life - not the way it was, but the way I felt it. That is the most important thing, not analyzing but feeling”

 

~ André Kertész
(1894-1985)

“The world makes up my pictures not me"

~ Lee Friedlander

“In the past decade a new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach towards more personal ends. Their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it. Their work betrays a sympathy - a trust, an affection - for the imperfections and frailties of society. They like the real world in spite of it’s terrors as the source of all wonder and fascination and value-no less precious for being irrational ."

~ John Szarkowski

“Always carry a camera, it's tough to shoot a picture without one”

~ Jay Maisel

“If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”

 

~ Eve Arnold

“New York is a city I love, a city that forgives nothing but accepts everyone - a place of a thousand varied moods and visions, of countless faces in a moving crowd, each one silently talking to you”

 

~ Louis Stettner

“Brassai showed me that it was possible to find something significant in photographing subjects in everyday life doing ordinary things by interpreting them in your own way and with your own personal vision"

 

~ Louis Stettner

“Dogs have more to do than children. For one thing, they are focused to lead a life that is really schizoid. Every minute, they have to be on two planes at once, juggling the dog world against the human world. And they’re always on call. Their owners want instant affection everyday, any time of day. A dog can never say that he has other things to do. He can never have a headache, like a wife.”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt

“There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.”

~ Simone de Beauvoir

“We are all living letters. All our troubles, our problems and our joys are written inside us. We are living photographs. Photography reveals the images hidden within us”

~ Edouard Boubat
(1923 - 1999)

“My way of life, my very being is based on images capable of engraving themselves indelibly in our inner soul’s eye.”

~ Louis Stettner (1922 -2016)

“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with their freedom”

~Bob Dylan (b. 1941)