Allan Douglass Coleman Quotes

United States, Critic
1943

A. D. Coleman (Allan Douglass Coleman) is an independent American critic, historian, educator, and curator of photography and photo-based art, and a widely published commentator on new digital technologies. He has published 8 books and more than 2000 essays on photography and related subjects. He has lectured and taught internationally; his work has been translated into 21 languages and published in 31 countries.

Also known as Historian, Educator, Commentator, Curator

... the battle for the acceptance of photography as Art was not only counter-productive but counter-revolutionary. The most important photography is most emphatically not Art.

Allan Douglass Coleman
It is no coincidence that one cardinal rule in brainwashing is to remove from the victim all photographs of himself and people he has known.

Allan Douglass Coleman

Photographs are of course about their makers, and are to be read for what they disclose in that regard no less than for what they reveal of the world as their makers comprehend, invent, and describe it.

Allan Douglass Coleman
- World
- Photography
- Makers
We've spent now about 150 years trying to convince ourselves that photographs are reliable evidence, some unimpeachable slice of the real world. That was a myth from the very beginning.

Allan Douglass Coleman
- World
- Real
- Trying
The simple fact is this: There are no neutral photographs.

Allan Douglass Coleman
- Simple
- Facts
- Photograph
What a photograph shows us is how a particular thing could be seen, or could be made to look - at a specific moment, in a specific context, by a specific photographer employing specific tools.

Allan Douglass Coleman
- Looks
- Photographer
- Tools
The past is always with us, in the form of our photographs, which we feel as we might a rosary, wearing them smooth with the fingering of our eyes.

Allan Douglass Coleman
- Past
- Eyes
- Eye