A Quote by John Berger

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.

John Berger

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Actually Any Belongs Does Drawing However Image Imitation Interpretation Naturalist Other Painting Photograph Rendering Subject Trace Unlike Visual Visual Image Way

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John Berger
English - Novelist
November 5, 1926 - January 2, 2017

A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.

Susan Sontag

While a painting, even one that meets photographic standards of resemblance, is never more than the stating of an interpretation, a photograph is never less than the registering of an emanation (light waves reflected by objects) — a material vestige of its subject in a way that no painting can be.

Susan Sontag

I guess my choice of medium depends on how I want to interpret the idea. Sometimes the interpretation works best in a photograph, and then sometimes it works best in a drawing. But most often times, with the work, everything starts with the diorama with the photograph. Then I'm just filtering out ideas and images from the photograph and reinterpreting them in other mediums.

Wardell Milan

I do tend to look at my books in many ways as conceptual fiction, even to the point where I think the author's photograph is part of the package. And I have gone out of my way to select the photograph to connect to the subject matter of each book.

Bret Easton Ellis

As far as the surface is concerned - oil on canvas, conventionally applied - my pictures have little to do with the original photograph. They are totally painting (whatever that may mean). On the other hand, they are so like the photograph that the thing that distinguished the photograph from all other pictures remains intact.

Gerhard Richter

Photography has arrived at the point where it is capable of liberating painting from all literature, from the anecdote, and even from the subject. In any case, a certain aspect of the subject now belongs to the domain of photography. So shouldn't painters profit from their newly acquired liberty, and make use of it to do other things?

Pablo Picasso

What matters is not what you photograph, but why and how you photograph it. Even the most controversial subject, if depicted by a sensitive photographer with honesty, sympathy, and understanding, can be transformed into an emotionally rewarding experience.

Andreas Feininger

I don't think that there's anything that we shouldn't be allowed to photograph, really, unless there's something that's really deeply harmful to the subject in the photograph.

Brady Corbet

I often photograph something as if the subject matter was realistic, but it is actually a fantasy.

Juergen Teller

Some people... cling to the idea that the photograph is an inherently real or honest image and as such is always on a different plane from an obviously subjective form of visual communication such as painting.

Tibor Kalman

The photographer Ruth Bernhard used to tell me that this is like asking somebody how they evolved their signature. It is not something I've ever worked on consciously. I think style is just the end result of personal experience. It would be problematic for me to photograph in another style. I'm drawn to places and subject matter that have personal connections for me and I photograph in a way that seems right. Where does it all come from, who knows?

Michael Kenna

Approaching subject matter to photograph is like meeting a person and beginning a conversation. How does one know ahead of time where that will lead, what the subject matter will be, how intimate it will become, how long the potential relationship will last? Certainly, a sense of curiosity and a willingness to be patient to allow the subject matter to reveal itself are important elements in this process.

Michael Kenna

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

Man Ray

How foolish of me to believe that it would be that easy. I had confused the appearance of trees and automobiles, and people with a reality itself, and believed that a photograph of these appearances to be a photograph of it. It is a melancholy truth that I will never be able to photograph it and can only fail. I am a reflection photographing other reflections within a reflection. To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.

Duane Michals

While we cannot describe its appearance (the equivalent), we can define its function. When a photograph functions as an Equivalent we can say that at that moment, and for that person the photograph acts as a symbol or plays the role of a metaphor for something that is beyond the subject photographed.

Minor White

Very few people can communicate with one another. The only language that's not subject to interpretation is mathematics, chemistry, basic science, engineering principles, and applied agriculture. But other than that, many systems today are subject to interpretation.

Jacque Fresco

A Quote by John Berger

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