A Quote by Joel-Peter Witkin

I wanted my photographs to be as powerful as the last thing a person sees or remembers before death. — © Joel-Peter Witkin
I wanted my photographs to be as powerful as the last thing a person sees or remembers before death.
Love is the most powerful thing of all and I remember thinking that - God, I'm about to make myself cry but, I remember thinking that when 9/11 happened because those last phone calls were about - the last thing knowingly, that I'm going to say on this earth is "I love you". What's more powerful than that? What's more proof than that? Beyond fear, beyond death.
I definitely know that-that love is the most powerful thing of all and I remember thinking that-God, I'm about to make myself cry but, I remember thinking that when 9/11 happened because those last phone calls were about-the last thing knowingly, that I'm going to say on this earth is 'I love you.' What's more powerful than that? What's more proof than that? Beyond fear, beyond death.
My photographs tried to find the politicians at their most wary, most vulnerable, and perhaps most truthful moments. I wanted the photographs to reveal the person through stance and stare, when he or she was most reflective or off guard, in order to measure the person and event unfolding.
Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.
The beautiful gift of my husband is that he saw me the way I've always wanted to be seen and there's something really powerful to that. When you find true love I really believe that that's what it is at its core. He makes me want to be a better person, but then he also sees me and reminds me that I am a good person.
Everyone remembers the last thing you did.
An enterprising person is one who comes across a pile of scrap metal and sees the making of a wonderful sculpture. An enterprising person is one who drives through an old decrepit part of town and sees a new housing development. An enterprising person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life.
Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.
Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.
To live in a world of photographs is to live in a world of substitutes... or so it seems, whose actual referent is always the other, the described, the reality of a world once removed. I prefer, on the other hand, to look at the photographs as something real and of my world, a strange and powerful thing... part of a language, a system of communication, an economy of signs.
My aim is increasingly to make my photographs look so much like photographs [rather than paintings, etchings, etc.] that unless one has eyes and sees, they won't be seen - and still everyone will never forget having once looked at them.
Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you're nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist - before that I wanted to be a footballer.
Before me now there is only one real fact -- Death. The truth I have been seeking -- this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So -- we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace. Because I will conquer death with death.
Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.
A good friend remembers what we were and sees what we can be.
There are two kinds of death, the death which is inevitable and common to all beings, and the death which is voluntary and particular to certain ones of them only. It is the second death which is prescribed for us in the words of the Messenger of Allah: "Die before you die." The resurrection is accomplished for him who dies this voluntary death. His affairs return to God and they are but one. He has returned to God and he sees Him through Him. As the Prophet said - on him be Grace and Peace!
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