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We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect… but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.

Aaron Siskind

To me documentary photography means making a picture so that the viewer doesn’t think about the man who made the picture. At its esthetic core is very old tradition in art: naturalism.
AARON SISKIND

Art Documentary Man Mean Photography Picture Tradition Viewer
It is no longer a matter of expressing reality, but of expressing what one feels about reality.
AARON SISKIND

Expression Feel Longer Matter Reality
Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.
AARON SISKIND

Feeling Loving Photography Touching Way
When I make a photograph I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order (unlike the world of events and actions whose permanent condition is change and disorder).
AARON SISKIND

Altogether Basic Complete Contained New Object Order Photography Self
For some reason or other there was in me the desire to see the world clean and fresh and alive, as primitive things are clean and fresh and alive. The so-called documentary picture left me wanting something.
AARON SISKIND

Alive Clean Desire Fresh Primitive Reason World
The only other things I got from the abstract expressionists is the absolute belief that this canvas is the complete total area of struggle, this is the arena, this is where the fight is taking place, the battle.
AARON SISKIND

Absolute Art Believe Canvas Complete Expression Fighting Struggle
The business of making a photograph may be said in simple terms to consist of three elements: the objective world (whose permanent condition is change and disorder), the sheet of paper on which the picture will be realized, and the experience which brings them together.
AARON SISKIND

Business Consist Element Objective Photography Simple Term Together
Relationships gradually emerge and sometimes assert themselves with finality. And that’s your picture.
AARON SISKIND

Assert Emerge Finally Gradually Photography Picture Relationship Sometimes
Purpose is to document all facets of social relationships.
AARON SISKIND

Document Facet Purpose Relationship Social
However, I must stress that my own interest is immediate and in the picture. What I am conscious of and what I feel is the picture I am making, the relation of that picture to others I have made and, more generally, its relation to others I have experienced.
AARON SISKIND

Conscious Experienced Immediate Interest Photographer Photography Picture Stress
The only nature I’m interested in is my own nature.
AARON SISKIND

Interested Nature Own Photographer Photography
Everybody believes that, but you have to really believe that and work that way.
AARON SISKIND

Believe Everybody Photography Really Way Work
We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect… but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.
AARON SISKIND

Art Believe Condition Expert Learn Photography World
As the language or vocabulary of photography has been extended, the emphasis of meaning has shifted, shifted from what the world looks like to what we feel about the world and what we want the world to mean.
AARON SISKIND

Emphasis Extted Language Mean Photography Shift Vocabulary
Almost inevitably there are tensions in the picture, tensions between the outside world and the inside world. For me, a successful picture resolves these tensions without eliminating them.
AARON SISKIND

Inevitably Inside Outside Photographer Successful Tension World
In any art, you don’t know in advance what you want to say – it’s revealed to you as you say it. That’s the difference between art and illustration.
AARON SISKIND

Advance Art Creativity Difference Illustration Photography Revealed Want
Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.
AARON SISKIND

Caught Feeling Inspirational Inspiring Photography Touching Way
I was given a small camera as a wedding gift from a very dear friend. My first pictures were taken on my honeymoon. As soon as I became familiar with the camera, I was intrigued with the possibilities of expression it offered. It was like a discovery for me.
AARON SISKIND

Discovery Gift Photography Small Taken Wedding
As photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs. Move on objects with your eye straight on, to the left, around on the right. Watch them grow large as they approach, group and regroup as you shift your position.
AARON SISKIND

Approach Eye Group Learn Moving Photography Position Relax
I may be wrong, but the essential illustrative nature of most documentary photography, and the worship of the object per se, in our best nature photography, is not enough to satisfy the man of today, compounded as he is of Christ, Freud, and Marx.
AARON SISKIND

Documentary Essential Men Photography Worship Wrong
If you look very intensely and slowly things will happen that you never dreamed of before.
AARON SISKIND

Before Dream Happen Intense Look Photographer Slowly

We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect… but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.

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We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect… but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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