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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

Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion… the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Exhaustion Hate Life Photography Theme
To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Enormous Life Live Touch Undertaking Visual
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
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
I encountered that many times, in unexpected places. And I have learned to recognize it when I see it.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Animal Courage Encounter Highest Said Time Undeniable
Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don’t realize it.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Crumble Edge Enormous People Realizing
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
… 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
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Blind Camera Photography Reality Stricken Tomorrow
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
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
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
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
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
You know there are moments such as these when time stands still and all you do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Breath Hope Moment Stand Still Wait Waiting
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
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

Advantage Being Different Disabled People Perspective
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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Before Disappear Eye Greatest People Vocabulary Word
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Camera Instrument People Photograph Teach
To me, beauty appears when one feels deeply, and art is an act of total attention.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Act Appear Art Attention Beauty Deeply Feel Total
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
The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Consequence Good Object Photo Photograph
It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Enough Life Obvious Photography Picturesque
Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Bystanders Perception Side Thought Viewer
The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects. So that no one would say, how did you do it, where did you find it, but they would say that such things could be.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Consequences Good Lens Object Photograph Photography
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 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

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.

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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.

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