The photographer's problem is to see clearly the limitations and at the same time the potential qualities of his medium, for it is precisely here that honesty no less than intensity of vision is the pre-requisite of a living expression. The fullest realization of this is accomplished without tricks of process or manipulation, through the use of straight photographic methods.

Paul Strand

Categorized in : Expression Photography Honesty

Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.

Paul Strand

records photography life

It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.

Paul Strand

humanness-is photography people

The portrait of a person is one of the most difficult things to do. It means you must almost bring the presence of that person photographed to other people in such a way that they don't have to know that person personally, but that they are still confronted with a human being that they won't forget. That's a portrait.

Paul Strand

portraits mean people

If you let other people's vision get between the world and your own, you will achieve that extremely common and worthless thing, a pictorial photograph.

Paul Strand

vision people world

It is easy to make a picture of someone and call it a portrait. The difficulty lies in making a picture that makes the viewer care about a stranger.

Paul Strand

portraits care lying

The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.

Paul Strand

feet world art

No matter what lens you use, no matter what speed the film, no matter how you develop it, no matter how you print it, you cannot say more than you can see.

Paul Strand

lenses use matter

The important thing is, you have to have something important to say about the world.

Paul Strand

important photography world

I've always wanted to be aware of what's going on around me, and I've wanted to use photography as an instrument of research into and reporting on the life of my own time.

Paul Strand

photography research use

Photography... is either an expression of a cosmic vision, an embodiment of a life movement or it is nothing - to me. (1919)

Paul Strand

vision photography expression

It has always been my belief that the true artist, like the true scientist, is a researcher using materials and techniques to dig into the truth and meaning of the world in which he himself lives; and what he creates, or better perhaps, brings back, are the objective results of his explorations. The measure of his talent--of his genius, if you will--is the richness he finds in such a life's voyage of discovery and the effectiveness with which he is able to embody it through his chosen medium.

Paul Strand

effectiveness artist discovery

Cartier-Bresson has said that photography seizes a 'decisive moment', that's true except that it shouldn't be taken too narrowly...does my picture of a cobweb in the rain represent a decisive moment? The exposure time was probably three or four minutes. That's a pretty long moment. I would say the decisive moment in that case was the moment in which I saw this thing and decided I wanted to photograph it.

Paul Strand

photography taken rain

All good art is abstract in its structure.

Paul Strand

abstract structure art

Every artist I suppose has a sense of what they think has been the importance of their work. But to ask them to define it is not really a fair question. My real answer would be, the answer is on the wall.

Paul Strand

wall photography real

Your photography is a record of your living - for anyone who really sees. You may see and be affected by other people's ways, you may even use them to find your own, but you will have eventually to free yourself of them. That is what Nietzche meant when he said, 'I have just read Schopenhauer, now I have to get rid of him.' He knew how insidious other people's ways could be, particularly those which have the forcefulness of profound experience, if you let them get between you and your own personal vision.

Paul Strand

photography profound people

The decision as to when to photograph, the actual click of the shutter, is partly controlled from the outside, by the flow of life, but it also comes from the mind and the heart of the artist. The photograph is his vision of the world and expresses, however subtly, his values and convictions.

Paul Strand

artist decision heart

And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.

Paul Strand

photography law two

I read the other day that Minor White said it takes twenty years to become a photographer. I think that is a bit of an exaggeration. I would say, judging from myself, that it takes at least eight or nine years. But it does not take any longer than it takes to learn to play the piano or the violin. If it takes twenty years, you might as well forget about it!

Paul Strand

eight years thinking

If the photographer is not a discoverer, then he is not an artist.

Paul Strand

photographer artist ifs

I like to photograph people who have strength and dignity in their faces. Whatever life has done to them, it hasn’t destroyed them.

Paul Strand

done faces people