Andre Breton once said that a portrait should not only be an image but an oracle one questions, and that the photographer’s aim should be a profound likeness, which physically and morally predicts the subject’s entire future.
BILL BRANDTAndre Breton once said that a portrait should not only be an image but an oracle one questions, and that the photographer’s aim should be a profound likeness, which physically and morally predicts the subject’s entire future.
BILL BRANDTIt is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual’s temperament and environment.
BILL BRANDTPhotography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried!
BILL BRANDTI am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.
BILL BRANDTPhotographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others. Photography is still a very new medium and everything is allowed and everything should be tried and dared…
BILL BRANDTPhotography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.
BILL BRANDTPhotography has no rules, it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.
BILL BRANDTNo amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.
BILL BRANDTSometimes they are a matter of luck, sometimes of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that you have seen. It is usually some incidental detail that heightens the effect of a picture, stressing a pattern, deepening the sense of atmosphere.
BILL BRANDTBy temperament I am not unduly excitable and certainly not trigger-happy. I think twice before I shoot and very often do not shoot at all.
BILL BRANDTAnd only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment.
BILL BRANDTIt is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.
BILL BRANDTBy professional standards I do not waste a lot of film; but by the standards of many of my colleagues I probably miss quite a few of my opportunities. Still, the things I am after are not in a hurry as a rule.
BILL BRANDTWhen I began to photograph nudes, I let myself be guided by this camera, and instead of photographing what I saw,
BILL BRANDTIt is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of a child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country
BILL BRANDTSometimes they are a matter of luck; the photographer could not expect or hope for them. Sometimes they are a matter of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that he has seen and lost or for one that he anticipates.
BILL BRANDT