Eve Arnold Quotes
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What has changed is that when I photographed, most people that I photographed didn't have the right of refusal on their work. It would take a Marilyn Monroe at her height to be able to dictate that.
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The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.
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Lesson number one: Pay attention to the intrusion of the camera.
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Being a woman is just a marvelous plus in photographing. Men like to be photographed by women, it becomes flirtatious and fun, and women feel less as if they're expected to be in a relationship.
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I realize that I had the best of serious picture journalism.
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I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary. I see them simply as people in front of my lens.
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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.
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I didn't want to be a woman photographer. That would limit me. I wanted to be a photographer who was a woman, with all the world open to my camera.
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I think if I ever get satisfied, I’ll have to stop. It’s the frustration that drives you.
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If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it's already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.
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What you need to be a good photographer is an overwhelming curiosity and a good digestion.
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What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be 'curiosity.
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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.
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If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.
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Themes recur again and again in my work.
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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.
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I never knew anyone who came close to Marilyn in natural ability to use both photographer and still camera. She was special in this, and for me there has been no one like her before or after. She has remained the measuring rod by which I have - unconsciously - judged other subjects.
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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.
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A studio session ... provides the greatest chance for control. Even though there is total freedom, I still dislike studio photography and the contrived images that usually stem from this genre.
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It's the hardest thing in the world to take the mundane and try to show how special it is.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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...if you think of modern art like sex in all its forms - heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, multipartnered, bestial, whatever, with absolutely no holds barred and with everything available and permissible - that would be modern art.