Blessed be the inventor of photography! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that read more

Blessed be the inventor of photography! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that has "cast up" in my time -- this art by which even the "poor" can possess themselves of tolerable of their absent dear ones.

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but read more

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.

You know what a camera is? A mirror with memory.

You know what a camera is? A mirror with memory.

I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else. Excitement about the subject read more

I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else. Excitement about the subject is the voltage which pushes me over the mountain of drudgery necessary to produce the final photograph.

In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular . . . sight and feeling will appear on a print. read more

In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular . . . sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the read more

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.

Photography is truth.

Photography is truth.

I love the medium of photography, for with its unique realism it gives me the power to go beyond conventional read more

I love the medium of photography, for with its unique realism it gives me the power to go beyond conventional ways of seeing and understanding and say, "This is real, too."

A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. read more

A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.