A Quote by Thomas Struth

If I look at my work from the beginning it is more the idea of trying to establish a kind of material that one can work with for the future, rather than making nostalgic images to record something that will later become lost.
I had to leave some traces. In the beginning, I would give complete instructions to the photographer. In the '70s, people would come to photograph your work and you would just end up with this crazy material that had nothing to do with your work; maybe I'd pick up two or three photographs that were the closest to the idea. This is why when you look at the '70s, you see much less documentation and really bad material. The material will become misleading to what the piece was.
Most of my work involves slowing down rather than speeding up. I prefer to look at prints than scans, and I prefer to look at original silver prints rather than digital prints. I prefer to look at fewer images, but spend time with those individual images.
The story, I like to say and remember, is always smarter than you—there will be patterns of theme, image, and idea that are much savvier and more complex than what you could come up with on your own. Find them with your marking pens as they emerge in your drafts. Become a student of your work in progress. Look for what your material is telling you about your material. Every aspect of a story has its own story.
The more people share woodland, absorb it and regard it as part of their personal heritage and culture, the richer our society will be. The more people can work in woods and use them practically rather than go through the motions as a kind of ersatz exercise, the more they will care for the places themselves rather than the political idea of them.
Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
When I think of the future, I think a lot of Quincy Jones and how he is an inspiration. Look at the quality of his work over so many years. He didn't even make his best record, 'Thriller,' until he was 50. That gives me something to look forward to. Nothing pulls you back into the studio more than the belief that your best record is still ahead.
Increasingly, the work I'm doing is in service to an idea rather than just to see what something looks like photographed. I'm trying to explore how I feel about something through photography.
Yeah, it's odd when you look back at your own work. Some filmmakers don't look back at their work at all. I look at my work a lot, actually. I feel like I learned something while looking at stuff I've done in terms of what I'm going to do in the future, mistakes I've made and things at work or what have you.
I don't use work from the past as a literal guide; rather, those artifacts reinforce a view that simple images can communicate with wide audiences over time. Icon design is like solving a puzzle, trying to marry an image and idea that, ideally, will be easy for people to understand and remember.
If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner's dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure.
What we see is what they're trying to sell us. It's not true nostalgic as much as it is repeating old material because it's less expensive than new material.
The idea of sustainability can imply there is one perfect, unchanging future, if only we could work out how to get there. Resilience might be more useful, in that it assumes a dynamic environment and that perfection is impossible. You need to design systems to accommodate failure rather than eliminate it. By trying to be perfect, many visions of sustainability are quite brittle
This world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres. You have the right to work, but do not become so degenerate as to look for results. Work incessantly, but see something behind the work. Even good deeds can find a man in great bondage. Therefore be not bound by good deeds or by desire for name and fame. Those who know this secret pass beyond this round of birth and death and become immortal.
In some areas, [Getty Images has] more images than the rest of the market put together. But libraries are being built up at a terrific pace. A photographer in a lifetime will produce maybe a million images, and there are about 15,000 professionals at work out there.
One reason I think I am able to work with such dark material is the fact I was never really discouraged from making this kind of work.
I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, colorful, luscious and engaging, and then you realize what you're looking at is something totally opposite. It seems boring to me to pursue the typical idea of beauty, because that is the easiest and the most obvious way to see the world. It's more challenging to look at the other side.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!