I had to get my camera to register things that were more important than how poor they were–their pride, their strength, their spirit.
DOROTHEA LANGEOne should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
More Dorothea Lange Quotes
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I realize more and more what it takes to be a really good photographer. You go in over your head, not just up to your neck.
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Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
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I many times encountered courage, real courage. Undeniable courage. I’ve heard it said that that was the highest quality of the human animal.
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It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.
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Photographers stop photographing a subject too soon before they have exhausted the possibilities.
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Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don’t realize it.
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The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
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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.
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Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.
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The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.
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The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
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Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander.
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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.
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One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
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You go into a room and you know where you’re welcome; you know where you’re unwelcome.
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A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
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Being disabled gave me an immense advantage. People are kinder to you. It puts you on a different level than if you go into a situation whole and secure.
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Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion… the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.
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Photography is a lot like telling a large predatory cat what to do-while an audience of people you can’t see watches you.
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Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.
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I believe in living with the camera, and not using the camera.
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To me, beauty appears when one feels deeply, and art is an act of total attention.
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The best way to go into an unknown territory is to go in ignorant, ignorant as possible, with your mind wide open, as wide open as possible and not having to meet anyone else’s requirement but your own.
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You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you.
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No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually.
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This benefit of seeing…can come only if you pause a while, extricate yourself from the maddening mob of quick impressions ceaselessly battering our lives, and look thoughtfully at a quiet image…the viewer must be willing to pause, to look again, to meditate.
DOROTHEA LANGE