Quote

To me, photography is 90% a retrospective experience. There's the part of pursuing the image, and exposing the film, but once you make the exposure, you're always looking backwards in time. I like that aspect of photography.

John Sexton

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John Sexton
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: September 29
Professor
Scientist
Brooklyn
New York
John Edward Sexton
Looking
Exposing
Experience
Pursuing
Film
Exposure
Part
Backwards
Make
Photographer
Always
Image
Time
Aspect
Like
Photography
Retrospective

More quotes by John Sexton

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Many photographers are consumed with the idea of making beautiful contact sheets. I am far more interested in making the best final print I can.
John Sexton
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I took a workshop from him a few months after that. That experience changed my whole approach to photography. At that workshop in Yosemite in 1973 I decided I wanted to try and see if I could pursue this for myself, and I'm still trying.
John Sexton
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In my mind I needed a symbol of today's technology, and I realized that what I wanted to photograph was the Space Shuttle. And so that's where Places of Power came into being.
John Sexton
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When I'm about ready to press the cable release on the View camera, I've tried to anticipate some of the challenges I'm going to encounter in the darkroom.
John Sexton
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The reason I do workshops is so I can learn, and I am fortunate that I've probably gained more from the whole experience of teaching than any one participant has. It is all about asking.
John Sexton
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When I teach and meet a class for the first time, you realize that there are people there that have exceptional abilities or have the potential to do exceptional things and you never know who those people are. My job is to provide the best information I can.
John Sexton
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Having photographed the landscape for a number of years and specifically working with trees and in the forest I found, without consciously thinking about it, that it was a great learning experience for me in terms of organizing elements.
John Sexton
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It's not a question of getting the opportunities, it's a question of noticing that opportunities are there.
John Sexton
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I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.
John Sexton
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It was amazing to watch him in the darkroom at an advanced age, still get excited when the results were pleasing. He still struggled like we all do in the darkroom and he struggled behind the camera, and when he had a success he was beaming.
John Sexton
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The first day at the power plant I found myself photographing some steam vents on the roof of the structure. And I remember consciously thinking that they were just like trees but they were metal.
John Sexton
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Obviously, we can see what was in front of the camera, but if a photograph is honestly made, it's a bit of a self-portrait. I think it's impossible for a photographer who is working honestly to keep this from happening.
John Sexton
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He was a very generous soul and was exceptionally dedicated to the medium of photography.
John Sexton
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I find the surface of a photograph a thing of beauty in and of itself, and it is this surface that makes a photograph unique relative to other two-dimensional media.
John Sexton
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And as part of my activity there, he had indicated he wanted me to work with him on that and conduct the various technical tests. And so a few months later I moved from Southern California up to the Monterey Peninsula where I still live today.
John Sexton
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So when I became interested in photography and further being inspired by the work that I saw of Ansel and others, it was a natural extension to go back to these places that I knew as a kid and explore them with my camera.
John Sexton
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In 1979, I received a phone call from Ansel Adams asking me if I would be willing to consider coming to work for him. I was teaching photography in Southern California at that point.
John Sexton
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I've found even after nearly 30 years of doing this, there are all kinds of new surprises that rear their heads at various times and I truly believe that 51% of the images, success takes place in the darkroom.
John Sexton
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There is a considerable amount of manipulation in the printmaking from the straight photograph to the finished print. If I do my job correctly that shouldn't be visible at all, it should be transparent.
John Sexton
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Pictures you have taken have an influence on those that you are going to make. That's life!
John Sexton