Quotes from Frederick Sommer

The Art of Vermeer must have been there on the morning of creation.

Some speak of a return to nature, I wonder where they could have been?

The field of action of a photograph should be that chessboard of the heart and mind upon which poetry and art have always operated

Life itself is not the reality. We are the ones who put life into stones and pebbles.

We work for that part of our vision which is uncompleted.

Art is the splendor of reality before everything has become meaning.

Ideas and art are the possibility of an answer tomorrow.

Art is not arbitrary. A fine painting is not there by accident; it is not arrived at by chance. We are sensitive to tonalities.

Choice and chance structure art and nature.

Poetic and speculative photographs can result if one works carefully and accurately, yet letting chance relationships have full play.

Reality is greater than our dreams.