Art photography Quote by John Szarkowski

“Photography is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere ...” quote by John Szarkowski — Download Open image

“Photography is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere ...”

John Szarkowski

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More by John Szarkowski

To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer's craft.

John Szarkowski

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Because we see reality in different ways, we must understand that we are looking at different truths rather than the truth and that, therefore,…

John Szarkowski

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Whatever else a photograph may be about, it is inevitably about photography, the container and vehicle of all its meanings.

John Szarkowski

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Photography's central sense of purpose and aesthetic: the precise and lucid description of significant fact.

John Szarkowski

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The central act of photography, the act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge - the line that separates in…

John Szarkowski

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One of the leading uses of photography by the mass media came to be called photojournalism. From the late 'twenties' to the early 'fifties'…

John Szarkowski

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It isn't what a picture is of, it is what it is about.

John Szarkowski

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Photography is choosing where to point your eye-cone.

John Szarkowski

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The photographer’s vision convinces us to the degree that the photographer hides his hand.

John Szarkowski

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In practice a photographer does not concern himself with philosophical issues while working; he makes photographs, working with subject matter that he thinks will…

John Szarkowski

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Trained as a musician, [photographer Ansel] Adams understood the richness of variation that could be unfolded from a simple theme.

John Szarkowski

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Pure photography is a system of picture-making that describes more or less faithfully what might be seen through a rectangular frame from a particular…

John Szarkowski

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Explore all 31 John Szarkowski quotes

More Art photography quotes

“Photography wasn’t even considered part of the art world until fairly recently. I find it ironic that some people in the world of fine-art…

Richard Olsenius

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That celebrated marriage of science and art, photography, seemed at the time to join together how we look at the world, art, with how…

Joseph Kosuth

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I take pleasure in working with the non-art photographs that reside in public archives, essentially authorless and owned by the world itself, because I…

Michael Light

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Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

Man Ray

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Real photography is a wonderfully inclusive, democratic medium, whereas art photography is more often a private pursuit by conmen.

Philip Jones Griffiths

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It is a cruel, ironical art, photography. The dragging of captured moments into the future; moments that should have been allowed to be evaporate…

Kate Morton

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Edward [Weston] was the first artist - and I don't use the word lightly - to make a living doing art photography. Other photographers…

Rondal Partridge

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Contemporary art photography, or, more specifically, what I would term mainstream art photography, represents for the most part the mining of an exhausted lode.

Abigail Solomon-Godeau