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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.

Dorothea Lange

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

Being Frame Life Lost Make Mind Photography Picture Subject Wonderful Yourself
I many times encountered courage, real courage. Undeniable courage. I’ve heard it said that that was the highest quality of the human animal.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Animal Courage Encounter Quality Real
No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Closely Country Ever Itself Scruntinzed Visually
I had to get my camera to register things that were more important than how poor they were–their pride, their strength, their spirit.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Camera Important Poor Pride Spirit Strength Thing
A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Documentaries Factual Life Photography
I trust my instincts. I don’t distrust them. They haven’t led me astray. It’s when I’ve made up my mind to be efficient that is when I have gone wrong.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Astray Efficient Gone Instinct led Mind Trust Wrong
Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Around Hostile Important Itself Situation Sometimes
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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Ignorant Mind Open Possible Territory Unknown Wide
The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Consequence Good Object Photo Photograph
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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Eye Life More Phenomenon Photography Psychological
It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Accident Become Lion More Photographer Tamer
I believe in living with the camera, and not using the camera.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Believe Camera Live Use
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Blind Camera Photography Reality Stricken Tomorrow
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

Another Eye Life More Nothing Own Perhaps Photograph Photography Province
Artists are controlled by the life that beats in them, like the ocean beats on the shore.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Artist Beat Controlled Life Ocean Shore
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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Appear Fight Photography State Sunday Today
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

Better Everything Fellow Hide Kind People Person See Tell
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

Benefits Come Extricate Impression Look Maddening Mob Pause Quick Quiet
Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Bystanders Perception Side Thought Viewer
… 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

All Came Concentrate Kind Only People Picture Take
I’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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

More never Phases Photographer Sure Yourself
To know ahead of time what you’re looking for means you’re then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Ahead Along False Know Limit Look Mean Own Photographer Photography Preconception Put
Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Alter Change Hold Inspirational Instant Life Photography Take
go in over your head, not just up to your neck.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Go Head Neck Need Over Passion
I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Beautiful Believe Generally Product
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

Neck Over Photographer Realize Take You
It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Enough Life Obvious Photography Picturesque

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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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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Popular Authors

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