On photograph as an act of love
“What is it in the end? It is a mounted piece of paper with a photographic silver image on it. But in it there is an element which you can’t call other than an act of love. That is the tremendous motivation behind it. And you give it. Not to a person, you give it to the world, to your world…an act of love – that’s the deepest thing behind it….The audience, the recipient of it, gives that back.”
“Your viewer, and he is a very mysterious person, you have to keep him in mind, always, and you don’t know him…. When he looks at such a wall on relationships, my hope would be that he would say to himself, ‘Oh yes, I know what she meant. I never thought of it, I never paid attention to it.’ Or… ‘I’ve seen that a thousand times.’ But he won’t miss it again, won’t miss it again. You’ve told about the familiar, the understood; but in calling attention to what it holds, you have added to your viewer’s confidence or his understanding, and the most complimentary thing…that anyone could ever say to you is, ‘I saw something today that you would have liked.’ Then you know you have reached him….If they say that, you know that you have reached them and given them something.”
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