A Quote by Lee Friedlander

The world makes up my pictures, not me. — © Lee Friedlander
The world makes up my pictures, not me.
We think of photography as pictures. And it is. But I think of photography as ideas. And do the pictures sustain your ideas or are they just good pictures? I want to have an experience in the world that is a deepening experience, that makes me feel alive and awake and conscious.
You know, I put my little brother in the movies and he's still in the pictures. My mother makes me put him in the pictures.
I've never been one to crave attention, which I know means that this is probably the worst career to pick. I get anxious even when people come up to me for pictures sometimes. That's the one thing that makes me hesitant about my future. But I love music too much to not do it.
Being in front of an audience makes me feel alive. Being with friends makes me feel alive. I’ve done some crazy stuff in my time and yet I can feel infinitely alive curled up on a sofa reading a book. So, what makes me feel alive? I guess it’s realizing I am part of the world around me.
Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! Often, before I learned, did I wonder whence came the multitudes of pictures that thronged my dreams; for they were pictures the like of which I had never seen in real wake-a-day life. They tormented my childhood, making of my dreams a procession of nightmares and a little later convincing me that I was different from my kind, a creature unnatural and accursed.
I think the way the world has evolved, it's maybe caught up to me. It makes more sense and it makes it click on a larger scale.
I really did put up all my wedding pictures on my website. And I swear to you, my wedding pictures got downloaded just as much as my bikini pictures.
I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.
My mind works like Google for images. You put in a key word; it brings up pictures. See language for me narrates the pictures in my mind.
When I miss you, sometimes I listen to music or look at pictures of you, not to remind me of you but to make me feel as if I'm with you. It makes me forget the distance and capture you.
When I see people wasting their hours doing nothing productive, nothing to contribute to the world, nothing to build relationships, it makes me sad. Actually, it makes me mad. I want to scream, 'Wake up!'.
I had an agent. When [Edward] Steichen was doing "The Family of Man", I went up to the office one day. I think Wayne Miller, who assisted Steichen with "The Family of Man," was up there and pulled out a bunch of pictures. So I got a message: "Take these pictures, call Steichen, make an appointment and take these pictures up there." And that's how I met him.
Boys tell me they have shared my pictures with their sisters to inspire them, and that makes me happy.
If it bothers me on the page, I don't do it. If it attracts me on the page and moves me, makes me think a bit, makes me laugh, makes me cry, I'm interested in it. If it's there on the page, it means it's there and up to me to bring it out. I have done some films along the way that have been screwed up and not as good as they read. Some films that are not that good on the page turn into good movies. So I'm fallible is what I'm saying.
It would be so easy to lose the plot now. It's not about achieving something for its own sake, and taking pictures for their own sake. But to make conscious decisions and choices, and it includes this constant questioning - Why am I taking pictures? Because really, the world is... it has pictures enough. I mean, there are enough pictures out there.
My mom means the world to me. She's always been the one to get me up early for work, help me with my make up and hair, and just be there to support me in whatever I do. She always makes sure that no matter what, I'm happy in what I'm doing.
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