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A very receptive state of mind... not unlike a sheet of film itself - seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second's exposure conceives a life in it.

Minor White

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Minor White
Age: 67 †
Born: 1908
Born: July 9
Died: 1976
Died: June 24
Photographer
University Teacher
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Minor Martin White
Photographer
Fractions
Second
Sheet
State
Receptive
Film
Seemingly
States
Exposure
Conceives
Mind
Sheets
Scientism
Life
Unlike
Inert
Sensitive
Fraction

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When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously.
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If I have anything to give you through camera, it must be of myself. … A gnawing burns inside … to make something of myself worth giving.
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We could teach photography as a way to make a living, and best of all, somehow to get students to experience for themselves photography as a way of life.
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At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.
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When I looked at things for what they are I was fool enough to persist in my folly and found that each photograph was a mirror of my Self.
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No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.
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Watching the way the current moves a blade of grass - sometimes I've seen that happen and it has just turned me inside out.
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While we cannot describe its appearance (the equivalent), we can define its function. When a photograph functions as an Equivalent we can say that at that moment, and for that person the photograph acts as a symbol or plays the role of a metaphor for something that is beyond the subject photographed.
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Students were taught by doing.
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Sometimes we work so fast that we don't really understand what's going on in front of the camera. We just kind of sense that, 'Oh my God, it's significant!' and photograph impulsively while trying to get the exposure right. Exposure occupies my mind while intuition frames the images.
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When I look at pictures I have made, I have forgotten what I saw in front of the camera and respond only to what I am seeing in the photographs.
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There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.
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Photographers who come up with power never get accused of imitating anyone else even though they photograph the same broom, same street, same portraits.
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I have often photographed when I am not in tune with nature but the photographs look as if I had been. So I conclude that something in nature says, 'Come and take my photograph.' So I do, regardless of how I feel.
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Photography is a language more universal than words.
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I'm always mentally photographing everything as practice.
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Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.
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In putting images together I become active, and excitement is of another order - synthesis overshadows analysis.
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To engage a sequence, we keep in mind the photographs on either side of the one in our eye.
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It is curious that I always want to group things, a series of sonnets, a series of photographs whatever rationalizations appear, they originate in urges that are rarely satisfied with single images.
Minor White