Walker Evans

I'm sometimes called a 'documentary photographer' but... a man operating under that definition could take a sly pleasure in the disguise. Very…

— Walker Evans

Privilege, if you're very strict, is an immoral and unjust thing to have, but if you've got it you didn't choose to…

— Walker Evans

What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced…

— Walker Evans

Photography is not cute cats, nor nudes, motherhood or arrangements of manufactured products. Under no circumstances it is anything ever anywhere near…

— Walker Evans

I used to try to figure out precisely what I was seeing all the time, until I discovered I didn't need to.…

— Walker Evans

What America needs is a political revolution.

— Walker Evans

It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

— Walker Evans

I think there is a period of esthetic discovery that happens to a man and he can do all sorts of things…

— Walker Evans

Documentary: That’s a sophisticated and misleading word. And not really clear… The term should be documentary style… You see, a document has…

— Walker Evans

It is the way to educate your eye and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.

— Walker Evans

Leaving aside the mysteries and the inequities of human talent, brains, taste, and reputations, the matter of art in photography may come…

— Walker Evans

Nobody should touch a Polaroid [camera] until he's over sixty

— Walker Evans

With the camera, it's all or nothing. You either get what you're after at once, or what you do has to be…

— Walker Evans

The eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.

— Walker Evans

The secret of photography is, the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler.

— Walker Evans

“Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here…

— Walker Evans

Many photographers are apt to confuse color with noise, and to congratulate themselves when they have almost blown you down with screeching…

— Walker Evans

That’s my idea of what a portrait ought to be, anonymous and documentary and a straightforward picture of mankind.

— Walker Evans

Do we know what we look like? Not really.

— Walker Evans

I never took it upon myself to change the world. And those contemporaries of mine who were going around falling for the…

— Walker Evans

I work rather blindly. I have a theory that seems to work with me that some of the best things you ever…

— Walker Evans

Incidentally, part of a photographer’s gift should be with people. You can do some wonderful work if you know how to make…

— Walker Evans

In order to put meaning back into our lives, we should recognize illusions for what they are, and we should reach out…

— Walker Evans

I began to wonder - I knew I was an artist or wanted to be one - but I was wondering whether…

— Walker Evans

“Die knowing something. You're not here long.”

— Walker Evans