#California

“I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well”

 

~ Gordon Parks
(1912-2006)

 

 

“My clothes are too chic for most women. If they want to wear them all right, but they’ve got to live up to them”

 

~ James Galanos
(1924-2016)

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“All you had to do was hang around him and magic would happen. He was naturally gregarious. He was like Ali in that respect, who I photographed alot. He loved the press”

 

~ Neil Leifer

 

 

“There have only been two geniuses in the world
Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare”

 

~ Tallulah Bankhead

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“I photograph out of love to record beautiful forms. It’s a way of life, a compulsion. There is nothing I would rather do.”

 

~ Brett Weston

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“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”

 

~ Maya Angelou

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“In my city we like to think of ourselves as risk-taking, edge-of-the continent explorers, rakish and louche. For example, we go from sleazy to elegance and find that logical. San Francisco is a city noted for its liberal attitude where anything goes. I just love this place.”

 

~ Fred Lyon
(1924-2022)

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“Staff photographers, freelancers and everyone who owned a camera, were all hoping to get published in LIFE Magazine. It was like getting one week of fame instead of the 15 minutes Andy Warhol talked about”

 

~ Allan Grant 

(1909-2008)

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“I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite”

 

~ Ansel Adams
(1902-1984)

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"I sense Light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent Light. What is made by Light casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light."

 

~ Louis Kahn

"The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject, and the camera will all but take you by the hand and point the way."

 

~ Ezra Stoller

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“I couldn’t believe I was going to photograph Bob Dylan. I chose the Ambassador Hotel because of the variety it gave me as a location. It also had a great history. It was where the Rat Pack used to hang out and play at its Coconut Grove Room. Also Robert Kennedy was assassinated there. Dylan was also interested in the history of the location. I think he stayed a few hours more for that reason. We also decided to create images with atmosphere and capturing special moments. We decided to find some props and someone came back with some foreign language newspapers and we thought it would be fun to go with that. I was simply amazed he even showed up !”

 

~ Danny Clinch

 

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do”

 

~ Bob Dylan

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“Humble's impres­sive output of colour photographs does for LA by day what Brassai did for Paris by night. Despite their geographic specificity, though, what makes Humble's pictures intriguing isn't the way they create a sense of place about the city, but how they capture its sense of dislocation. ”

 

~ Carmine Iannaccone

“I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite”

~ Ansel Adams
(1902-1984)

“I can still recall the excitement of seeing the visualization “come true” when I removed the plate from the fixing bath for examination. The desired values were all there in their beautiful negative interpretation. This was one of the most exciting moments of my photographic career.”

~ Ansel Adams
(1902-1984)

“It is difficult to conceive of a substance more impressively brilliant than the spurting plumes of white waters in sunlight against a deep blue sky”

~ Ansel Adams
1902-1984

"Nobody has ever accused me of being an intellectual. So perhaps the most significant asset I bring to my efforts is an innocent eye. Endless curiosity propels me. Then the discipline of years and respect for the affairs of craftsmanship allow the vision to develop mysteriously into a surprise. Gratitude for arduous, mundane, or occasionally painful experiences is rare, but the many types of photography in my background have allowed some visual synthesis to emerge from my monkey mind. Restless and impatient, with no time to dwell on such things, I lurch onward. No subject is sacred or safe from my attack. Beware. Being inherently nosy, I poke into every odd corner. Since photography is a process of discovery for me, I periodically produce an image that delights or amuses me. Then I'm anxious to see what it evokes in others."

 

~ Fred Lyon
(1924-2022)

"I can’t stress enough how important observation is as the foundational component of being a photographer. It is all about noticing things; light, texture, form, the confluence of these elements within infinite combinations. Essentially my passion for landscape photography came through being a person who is a certain type of observant as well as someone who has always felt at peace and tremendously as ease out in nature."

~ Jeffrey Conley

“I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you,
My heart moves from cold to fire.
I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you, bend to you,
and the measure of my changing love for you,
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume my heart with its cruel ray,
stealing my key to true calm.
In this part of the story I am the one who dies,
The only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.”

~ Pablo Neruda
(Sonnet LXVI: I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You)

Wynn Bullock, to my mind, is one the greatest 20th Century photographers. Often eclipsed by his more well known contemporaries, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.  This is a haunting portrait of his mother’s hands taken in his modest house in Carmel in 1956. The beauty of the print just knocks me out and is the definition of the word “primal”.