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 LANGENo country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually.
More Dorothea Lange Quotes
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You go into a room and you know where you’re welcome; you know where you’re unwelcome.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
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 -
Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
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 -
The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion… the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Photographers stop photographing a subject too soon before they have exhausted the possibilities.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
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 -
Ours is a time of the machine, and ours is a need to know that the machine can be put to creative human effort. If not, the machine can destroy us.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
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 -
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 -
Artists are controlled by the life that beats in them, like the ocean beats on the shore.
DOROTHEA LANGE -
Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander.
DOROTHEA LANGE