Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander.
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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Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion… the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.
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Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
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The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
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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.
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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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The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
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That frame of mind that you need to make fine pictures of a very wonderful subject, you cannot do it by not being lost yourself.
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I had to get my camera to register things that were more important than how poor they were–their pride, their strength, their spirit.
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Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.
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Seeing is more than a physiological phenomenon… We see not only with our eyes but with all that we are and all that our culture is. The artist is a professional see-er.
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go in over your head, not just up to your neck.
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I believe in living with the camera, and not using the camera.
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The words that come direct from the people are the greatest.If you substitute one out of your own vocabulary, it disappears before your eyes.
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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.
DOROTHEA LANGE






