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The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.

Dorothea Lange

It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Accident Become Lion More Photographer Tamer
No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Closely Country Ever Itself Scruntinzed Visually
The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Consequence Good Object Photo Photograph
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

Astray Efficient Gone Instinct led Mind Trust Wrong
Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Around Hostile Important Itself Situation Sometimes
To me, beauty appears when one feels deeply, and art is an act of total attention.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Act Appear Art Attention Beauty Deeply Feel Total
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 LANGE

Audience Cat Large People Photographer Photography Predatory Tell
… it came to me that what I had to do was to take pictures and concentrate upon people, only people, all kinds of people, people who paid me and people who didn’t.
DOROTHEA LANGE

All Came Concentrate Kind Only People Picture Take
I many times encountered courage, real courage. Undeniable courage. I’ve heard it said that that was the highest quality of the human animal.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Animal Courage Encounter Quality Real
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

Benefits Come Extricate Impression Look Maddening Mob Pause Quick Quiet
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

Another Eye Life More Nothing Own Perhaps Photograph Photography Province
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 LANGE

Camera Important Poor Pride Spirit Strength Thing
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

Creative Effort Human Machine Need Time
You go into a room and you know where you’re welcome; you know where you’re unwelcome.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Heart People Tree Unwelcome Welcome
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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Neck Over Photographer Realize Take You
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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Ignorant Mind Open Possible Territory Unknown Wide

The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.

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The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.

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