Quotes About Photography

For me, nothing brings out my 'born yesterday' idiotic qualities quite like having my photograph taken.

I was so impressed with the work we were doing and I was very involved ideologically in photography - that I arranged an exhibition at the College Art Association. The first exhibition I picked the photographs and so on and we had an exhibition in New York.

I was born in Seoul, South Korea; then I moved to New York City at the age of seventeen. In New York, I studied art and photography. I thought I would be a painter; then I saw Walker Evans when I was in college, and that had a great impact on me. Being in the darkroom making B&W prints was such a magical experience.

I've taken pictures in at least 14 countries, and nowhere have people told me 'no' more than New York City.

On many days my primary artistic struggle is, in fact, photography because it is harder to do good work with that. I see myself as an observer of the world who has a strong drive to testify, which I can do because I have the privilege of living in New York with enough food to eat and shelter.

A number of years ago, I found a book of photography by Weegee; he was a crime photographer in the 1930s in New York. He was the first person to put a police scanner in a car and drive around.

The 'New Yorker' asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn't the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it's dying.

A lot of people think that when you have grand scenery, such as you have in Yosemite, that photography must be easy.

I took a workshop from him a few months after that. That experience changed my whole approach to photography. At that workshop in Yosemite in 1973 I decided I wanted to try and see if I could pursue this for myself, and I'm still trying.

I went to Yosemite as an homage to Ansel Adams. I could never be Ansel Adams, but to know that's there for us - there's so much for us in this country.

I began taking pictures in the natural world to be able to show people what I was experiencing when I climbed and explored in Yosemite in the High Sierra.

When I was young, around 5, I was crying in all the pictures of me. I did not like the flash; it scared me!

I got a camera at a very young age, but I always kind of thought of it as a hobby.

As a young girl, being a chef did not cross my mind - I wanted to conquer the world. I wanted to play with my brother and the boys. I wanted to be a famous photographer.

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.

Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.

I just travel the world with my backpack and my cameras and a bunch of Clif bars.

I think a lot of times, especially for certain stories, photographers travel together for safety reasons, and they also invariably cross paths. But you could have 10 photographers shooting together in the same spot but capturing different images.

There have been so many photographers and editors who mentored me over the years. At the very beginning, the person who taught me the most was Arthur Elgort. I always loved working with him. We traveled a lot together.

For me, I think my traveling is usually a lot of photographic memories, and I take a lot of photos.

I love the process - collaborating with the photographers, traveling, and seeing different cultures. My mother always said I would regret it if I didn't do it. And I think she was right.

I don't click pictures. People carry a camera with them while travelling, take pictures, keep them as memories, but I don't. I don't even have a camera.

Most of these pictures, taken while travelling, were developed on the mantelpiece of a hotel room, which proves that the method is easy enough to carry out.

I'm always taking pictures and travelling with a camera and have so many photos that I've done a book.