Eve Arnold Quotes

I came to photography by accident.
I can't hold a camera anymore.
I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary. I see them simply as people in front of my lens.
I find going back through things sometimes exhilarating because I find things I didn't know I had, and sometimes it's very off putting because there are things I never quite finished, and there's nothing at all to do about it now.
I had in mind a long career.
I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives; I am a woman and I wanted to know about women.
I look for a sense of reality with everything I did. I didn't work in a studio, I didn't light anything. I found a way of working which pleased me because I didn't have to frighten people with heavy equipment. It was that little black box and me and £5 worth of film in my pocket or maybe it was only £2 in those days.
I love the idea I can go off with a single camera and a few rolls of film unencumbered... I was not interested in the illusion of reality, I wanted to get close to what was happening.
I realise that I had the best of serious picture journalism. There was an innocence in our approach, especially in the 1950s and 1960s when we naively believed that by holding a mirror up to the world we could help - no matter how little - to make people aware of the human condition.
I realize that I had the best of serious picture journalism.
I want the subject to be in control. Because they will give me something I couldn't possibly know about them.
If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given.
If the chemistry is right between star and photographer and the geometry of the pictures pleases the star, often the two people end up with a long-term professional friendship during which they continue to work together and to produce highly personal images.
If you are careful with people, they will offer you part of themselves. That is the big secret.
It doesn't matter if you use a box camera or you use a Leica; the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing.
It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.
It's hard for me to assess what I brought because each time you pick up a camera and point it at a person, you're trying to define that person so to talk generally is difficult because I have to think of a given image in order to conjure up what we're talking about.
Lesson number one: Pay attention to the intrusion of the camera.
Recording sessions were stimulating to photograph, because everything was in motion: the subject, the musicians, the technicians and the photographer. You needed fast reflexes to keep up with moving targets, and sensitivity and skill to get the pictures while keeping out of the performers' eyeline so as not to break their concentration.
Themes recur again and again in my work.
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AuthorName
Eve Arnold
Profession
Photographer
BirthDate
21 April, 1912
DeathDate
04 January, 2012
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