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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.

Dorothea Lange

You go into a room and you know where you’re welcome; you know where you’re unwelcome.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Heart People Tree Unwelcome Welcome
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
I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Beautiful Believe Generally Product
I believe in living with the camera, and not using the camera.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Believe Camera Live Use
A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Documentaries Factual Life Photography
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
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
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
Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Around Hostile Important Itself Situation Sometimes
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
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
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
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
The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Consequence Good Object Photo Photograph
Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Bystanders Perception Side Thought Viewer
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.
DOROTHEA LANGE

Close Country Itself Look People Scruntnize Visually

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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