Photography is a lot like telling a large predatory cat what to do-while an audience of people you can’t see watches you.
DOROTHEA LANGEWhile there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.
More Dorothea Lange Quotes
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go in over your head, not just up to your neck.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
You go into a room and you know where you’re welcome; you know where you’re unwelcome.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
The people who are garrulous and wear their heart on their sleeve and tell you everything, that’s one kind of person, but the fellow who’s hiding behind a tree and hoping you don’t see him is the fellow that you’d better find out why.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
I trust my instincts. I don’t distrust them. They haven’t led me astray. It’s when I’ve made up my mind to be efficient that is when I have gone wrong.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
You know there are moments such as these when time stands still and all you do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion… the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Ours is a time of the machine, and ours is a need to know that the machine can be put to creative human effort. If not, the machine can destroy us.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
To know ahead of time what you’re looking for means you’re then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
To me, beauty appears when one feels deeply, and art is an act of total attention.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Artists are controlled by the life that beats in them, like the ocean beats on the shore.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.
DOROTHEA LANGE