The lens freezes time and space in what may be an optical slavery or, contrarily, the crystallization of meaning. The limits of the lens' vision are esthetically often a virtue. Berenice Abbott More Quotes by Berenice Abbott More Quotes From Berenice Abbott I didn't decide to be a photographer; I just happened to fall into it. Berenice Abbott photography photographer fall Photography doesn't teach you to express your emotions; it teaches you how to see. Berenice Abbott teach emotion photography Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past. Berenice Abbott photography photographer past Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term-selectivity. Berenice Abbott photography simple exercise What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera (the lens) notes with relentless fidelity. Berenice Abbott cameras eye photographer Photography is not only drawing with light, though light is the indispensable agent of its being. It is modeling or sculpturing with light, to reproduce the plastic form of natural objects. It is painting with light. Berenice Abbott drawing light photography There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own. Berenice Abbott ruins teacher inspirational Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties. The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself. Berenice Abbott optimism real people Photography helps people to see. Berenice Abbott photography helping people I agree that all good photographs are documents, but I also know that all documents are certainly not good photographs. Furthermore, a good photographer does not merely document, he probes the subject, he 'uncovers' it. Berenice Abbott agree photographer doe I'm not a nice girl; I'm a photographer. (On being told by a Federal Art Project official, after she photographed the Bowery, that a nice girl should not go into such neighborhoods ) Berenice Abbott nice girl art Like every other means of expression, photography, if it is to be utterly honest and direct, should be related to the life of the times - the pulse of today. Berenice Abbott photography expression mean I am so fascinated with this century it will help keep me alive. I'll be there until the last minute, fighting. Berenice Abbott lasts alive fighting Pictures are wasted unless the motive power which impelled you to action is strong and stirring. Berenice Abbott photography strong action The more you do, the more you realize there is to do, what a vast object the metropolis is, and how the work of photographing could go on forever. Berenice Abbott realizing goes-on forever Does not the very word 'creative' mean to build, to initiate, to give out, to act - rather than to be acted upon, to be subjective? Living photography is positive in its approach, it sings a song of life - not death. Berenice Abbott photography song mean The photographer is the contemporary being par excellence; through his eyes the now becomes the past. Berenice Abbott excellence eye past The challenge for me has first been to see things as they are, whether a portrait, a city street, or a bouncing ball. In a word, I have tried to be objective. Berenice Abbott portraits cities challenges Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself. Berenice Abbott growing-up walks photography Imagine a world without photography, one could only imagine. Berenice Abbott photography photographer world
