Quotes from Ralph Gibson

First you study photography, then you practice photography, then you serve photography, and finally one becomes photography.

In the history of photography, we have many masterpieces in terms of black and white books. You have Bresson's 'Decisive Moment,' Frank's 'The Americans'... many masterpieces. But there is nothing to this caliber in color. Well, I think I'll waltz with my muse and hope that I might be able to produce something on this order in color.

Passing from one dimension to another, he feels that nothing is left behind, but rather is always with him in the moment. His life is no more a myth than other man's, his needs much the same. The only price he pays for this exquisite singularity may be the intrusion of his fellow dreamers who sometimes call him on the telephone. They mean no harm. They too are innocent. Clarity is all any man seeks, this Somnambulist merely find his on the other Side.

Because art as a pursuit, as a concept, as an ideal, constantly elevates one above the pragmatic, one is inclined to discuss art in heightened terminologies. For me, it is just what I do all day long.

One of the reasons I love to come to Paris is because the decorative arts are so refined that I am always walking through one proscenium into another frame.

I'm interested in producing truncated shapes in proportion to the frame and composition, shapes that are preferably luminous. I'm not interested in the full-figure. I want to abstract forms.

The French have a different take on photography than Americans do. They consider photography to be absolutely parallel to literature. That often makes for a deeper perception of the work.