Questions #8, #9, #10

Here are my responses to the following quotes.


“My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.” ~Richard Avedon.
I think that in most instances when the photographer is taking the time to think about what he is doing with the camera, he saying a lot about himself. In class when we look at every students photographs they all are very different, and I think every person has their own signature in their photographs, the subjects they choose, the lighting, the location, and what they want it to express or not express. It is like in every other discipline of fine art no one makes the same product the same way.

“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” ~Ansel Adams


There is truth to this quote as well. When a photograph is captured nothing is actually taken from the scene except the light. And in every step of the process you are in control and make decisions of what is going to happen to make the photograph the way it looks. The lens also puts a new perspective on things in a way that is not available to us with our own eyes.

“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.” ~John Berger

Another truth spoken. Photographs although capturing everything the way it is as seen through the lens allows people to develop and interpret things in their own way. Although in some instances the photographer may have captured a scene in the way he wanted others to see it, much in like the way a painter writes on a canvas. I think the majority of the time a photograph is there to remind us of the past that we so easily forget.