The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.
DOROTHEA LANGESurefire things are deadening to the human spirit.
More Dorothea Lange Quotes
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… 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 -
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
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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A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
The people who are garrulous and wear their heart on their sleeve and tell you everything, that’s one kind of person, but the fellow who’s hiding behind a tree and hoping you don’t see him is the fellow that you’d better find out why.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
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 -
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
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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.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
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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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 -
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 -
Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander.
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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.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
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