A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
DOROTHEA LANGEI’ve never not been sure that I was a photographer any more than you would not be sure you were yourself. I was a photographer, or wanting to be a photographer, or beginning – but some phase of photographer I’ve always been.
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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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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One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
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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.
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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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Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don’t realize it.
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Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
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Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.
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I encountered that many times, in unexpected places. And I have learned to recognize it when I see it.
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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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It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.
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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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Photography today appears to be in a state of flight… The familiar is made strange, the unfamiliar grotesque. The amateur forces his Sundays into a series of unnatural poses.
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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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It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.
DOROTHEA LANGE