Quote

Documentary: That’s a sophisticated and misleading word. And not really clear… The term should be documentary style… You see, a document has use, whereas art is really useless.

Walker Evans

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Walker Evans
Age: 71 †
Born: 1903
Born: November 3
Died: 1975
Died: April 10
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
St. Louis
Missouri
Photography
Document
Style
Documentary
Term
Documentaries
Clear
Documents
Word
Sophisticated
Use
Whereas
Art
Useless
Misleading
Really
Photographer
Mislead

More quotes by Walker Evans

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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
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I'm sometimes called a 'documentary photographer' but... a man operating under that definition could take a sly pleasure in the disguise. Very often I'm doing one thing when I'm thought to be doing another.
Walker Evans
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What America needs is a political revolution.
Walker Evans
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I work rather blindly. I have a theory that seems to work with me that some of the best things you ever do sort of come through you. You don't know where you get the impetus and response to what's before your eyes.
Walker Evans
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It's easy to photograph light reflecting from a surface, the truly hard part is capturing the light in the air.
Walker Evans
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Nobody should touch a Polaroid [camera] until he's over sixty
Walker Evans
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Do we know what we look like? Not really.
Walker Evans
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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
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I wanted so much to write that I couldn't write a word.
Walker Evans
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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
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Photography is not cute cats, nor nudes, motherhood or arrangements of manufactured products. Under no circumstances it is anything ever anywhere near a beach.
Walker Evans
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Color tends to corrupt photography and absolute color corrupts it absolutely. Consider the way color film usually renders blue sky, green foliage, lipstick red, and the kiddies' playsuit. These are four simple words which must be whispered: color photography is vulgar.
Walker Evans
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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
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... nature photographs downright bore me for some reason or other. I think: 'Oh, yes. Look at that sand dune. What of it?'
Walker Evans
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The eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.
Walker Evans
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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
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The secret of photography is, the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler.
Walker Evans
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I think there is a period of esthetic discovery that happens to a man and he can do all sorts of things at white heat.
Walker Evans
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Detachment, lack of sentimentality, originality, a lot of things that sound rather empty. I know what they mean. Let's say, visual impact may not mean much to anybody. I could point it out though. I mean it's a quality that something has or does not have. Coherence. Well, some things are weak, some things are strong.
Walker Evans
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I do note that photography, a despised medium to work in, is full of empty phonies and worthless commercial people. That presents quite a challenge to the man who can take delight in being in a very difficult, disdained medium.
Walker Evans