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 LANGEArtists are controlled by the life that beats in them, like the ocean beats on the shore.
More Dorothea Lange Quotes
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I believe in living with the camera, and not using the camera.
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It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.
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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.
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The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.
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I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.
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Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.
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You go into a room and you know where you’re welcome; you know where you’re unwelcome.
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Artists are controlled by the life that beats in them, like the ocean beats on the shore.
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The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
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Photographers stop photographing a subject too soon before they have exhausted the possibilities.
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No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually … I know what we could make of it if people only thought we could dare look at ourselves.
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The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.
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A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
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I had to get my camera to register things that were more important than how poor they were–their pride, their strength, their spirit.
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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.
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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 encountered that many times, in unexpected places. And I have learned to recognize it when I see it.
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It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.
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You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you.
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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.
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Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don’t realize it.
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To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it.
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Photography is a lot like telling a large predatory cat what to do-while an audience of people you can’t see watches you.
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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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Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.
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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