A Quote by Garry Winogrand
Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgment that the photograph is good
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Sometimes photographers mistake emotion for what makes a great street photograph.
I never had any intention nor interest in being an artist, but when I made work I realized that this was my language. What I had to say needed to be said in this way. I always loved taking photographs - but never considered myself a photographer. I have tremendous respect for photographers. I do use a camera and a photo as a basis for a lot of my work, but I use it as a means to attain an image to work from. The actual photography in my work is a monochromatic photograph. I'll photograph something and extract a color that will then be the background for a painting.
I thought it would be good not to hide the fact that you're taking a photograph, and have people react and come in close and also make a commentary on what's being photographed: 'This is a photo, this is my point of view.'
And that desire-the strong desire to take pictures-is important. It borders on a need, based on a habit: the habit of seeing. Whether working or not, photographers are looking, seeing, and thinking about what they see, a habit that is both a pleasure and a problem, for we seldom capture in a single photograph the full expression of what we see and feel. It is the hope that we might express ourselves fully-and the evidence that other photographers have done so-that keep us taking pictures.
Most photographers go and photograph something that they see, that exists, and that somebody else has created - they document it. But fashion photographers have to create what they're going to photograph. We have to go into the thought and build it up, get a girl, get a guy, get a situation, get the house, get the decor. It's the meaning of the word photography: "writing with light."
When I was in art school, the photo kids were separated from the rest. If you did sculpture or painting or graphic design, you were all taking the same classes, but the photographers just went straight into photography.
The main thing is to study pictures and stop listening to the pontifictaions of photographers. Photographers aren't oracles of wisdom. If they're good photographers, then take a good look at their pictures - what else do you need?
In the age of the camera phone it's a bit weird when you're sitting having dinner in a restaurant and people think they're being very subtle taking a photo while in fact they're being very obvious. When you're in a middle of a mouthful with friends or family and people come up asking for a photograph, that's when you want to say, 'Actually, I'm going to say no; I'd like to finish my meal. This is my time.'
In making portraits, I refuse to photograph myself as do so many photographers. My style is the style of the people I photograph.
I like to capture moments. It's like a photograph. Ten years from now you look at the photograph and you don't remember it but rather the whole week or month around the photo.
Take pictures all the time. Don't worry if you take a bad photograph; you learn more by taking a bad picture than a good one. If you don't like it, study it and figure out why you don't like it. You'll learn from your mistake.
Now very often events are set up for photographers... The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist.
Photographers have to impose order, bring structure to what they photograph. It is inevitable. A photograph without structure is like a sentence without grammar-it is incomprehensible, even inconceivable.
Just pushing a button is taking a photo. Thinking, lighting, and lots of other things~that's making a photo.
If you have just an emotion, you would not necessarily feel it. To feel an emotion, you need to represent in the brain in structures that are actually different from the structures that lead to the emotion, what is going on in the organs when you're having the emotion.
If you ant to feel deeply, you have to think deeply. Too often we separate the two. We assume that if we want to feel deeply, then we need to sit around and, well, feel. But emotion built on emotion is empty. True emotion- emotion that is reliable and does not lead us astray- is always a response to reality, to truth.
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