Quote

The meaning of quality in photography's best pictures lies written in the language of vision. That language is learned by chance, not system.

Walker Evans

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Walker Evans
Age: 71 †
Born: 1903
Born: November 3
Died: 1975
Died: April 10
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
St. Louis
Missouri
System
Vision
Written
Quality
Pictures
Chance
Photography
Lying
Lies
Language
Meaning
Best
Learned

More quotes by Walker Evans

Image
Science has rolled its war wagons over the crushed myths of so many religious beliefs. It has marshaled its mechanics to explain the motions of the sun, moon, and stars. It has mapped the heavens, leaving no place for gods to live.
Walker Evans
Image
The secret of photography is, the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler.
Walker Evans
Image
Nobody should touch a Polaroid [camera] until he's over sixty
Walker Evans
Image
... nature photographs downright bore me for some reason or other. I think: 'Oh, yes. Look at that sand dune. What of it?'
Walker Evans
Image
Somewhere in our search for reality we have passed something by, something important that we no longer find amid the bits and pieces of disassembled matter-something vital that we cannot build out of these parts. There is surely something else, some piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and that owes no homage to the sun.
Walker Evans
Image
Many photographers are apt to confuse color with noise, and to congratulate themselves when they have almost blown you down with screeching hues alone-a bebop of electric blues, furious reds, and poison greens.
Walker Evans
Image
I used to try to figure out precisely what I was seeing all the time, until I discovered that I didn't need to. If the thing is true, why there it is.
Walker Evans
Image
Do we know what we look like? Not really.
Walker Evans
Image
Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.
Walker Evans
Image
It's too presumptuous and naïve to think you can change society by a photograph or anything else... I equate that with propaganda I think that's a lower rank of purpose.
Walker Evans
Image
The eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.
Walker Evans
Image
I never took it upon myself to change the world. And those contemporaries of mine who were going around falling for the idea that they were going to bring down the United States government and make a new world were just asses to me.
Walker Evans
Image
What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman.
Walker Evans
Image
Privilege, if you're very strict, is an immoral and unjust thing to have, but if you've got it you didn't choose to get it and you might as well use it. You're privileged to be at Yale, but you know you're under an obligation to repay what's been put into you.
Walker Evans
Image
You see, a document has use, whereas art is really useless. Therefore art is never a document, although it can adopt that style.
Walker Evans
Image
It's easy to photograph light reflecting from a surface, the truly hard part is capturing the light in the air.
Walker Evans
Image
In order to put meaning back into our lives, we should recognize illusions for what they are, and we should reach out and touch the fabric of reality.
Walker Evans
Image
Good photography is unpretentious.
Walker Evans
Image
It is the way to educate your eye and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.
Walker Evans
Image
Leaving aside the mysteries and the inequities of human talent, brains, taste, and reputations, the matter of art in photography may come down to this: it is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing it is the defining of observation full and felt.
Walker Evans