Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by Lois Greenfield

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American photographer Lois Greenfield.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
Lois Greenfield

Lois Greenfield is an American photographer best known for her unique approach to photographing the human form in motion. Born in New York City, she attended Hunter College Elementary School, the Fieldston School, and Brandeis University. Greenfield majored in Anthropology and expected to become an ethnographic filmmaker but instead, she became a photojournalist for local Boston newspapers. She traveled around the world on various assignments as a photojournalist but her career path changed in the mid-1970s when she was assigned to shoot a dress rehearsal for a dance concert. Greenfield has since specialized in photographing dancers in her photo studio as part of her exploration of the expressive potential of movement.

My inspiration has always been photography's ability to stop time and reveal what the naked eye cannot see.
I don't digitally manipulate my images, because I am interested in the spontaneous act of creating images without forethought. I know many artists start with an idea in mind, and then they put it on paper. I don't work that way.
Working improvisationally in my studio with dancers, it's completely different. We don't have any starting point; we don't have an end point. We don't have anything we are trying to show or do. The picture evolves from nowhere.
I realized that one of the differences between news photography and dance photography was that the former has to tell a specific story, whereas all a dance photograph had to be was visually interesting.
My interest in photography is not to capture an image I see or even have in my mind, but to explore the potential of moments I can only begin to imagine. — © Lois Greenfield
My interest in photography is not to capture an image I see or even have in my mind, but to explore the potential of moments I can only begin to imagine.
The ostensible subject of my photographs may be motion, but the subtext is time. A dancer's movements illustrate the passage of time, giving it a substance, materiality, and space. In my photographs, time is stopped, a split second becomes an eternity, and an ephemeral moment is solid as sculpture.
Being called a dance photographer makes me bristle. You might say that dance is my landscape. The root of my interest is movement or, rather, how movement can be interpreted photographically, and dance provides a perfect opportunity for this.
What intrigues me is making images that confound and confuse the viewer but that the viewer knows, or suspects, really happened.
If I knew what the photograph was going to look like, I wouldn't bother taking it. It's the voyage of discovery that fascinates me.
I shoot just one moment at a time... These moments are beneath the threshold of perception.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!