14 Duane Michals Quotes for You to Enjoy

Duane Michals

American Photographer

Born: Feb 18, 1932

Myself Nothing People Photography Think Work

Related authors: Annie Leibovitz Ansel Adams Berenice Abbott Diane Arbus Dorothea Lange Gordon Parks Imogen Cunningham Robert Mapplethorpe

Even in the deepest love relationship - when lovers say 'I love you' to each other - we don't really know what we're saying, because language isn't equal to the complexity of human emotions. Duane Michals

I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways. Duane Michals

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. Duane Michals

Photography Nothing Deals Appearances Appears Exquisitely

Photographers usually want to photograph facts and things. But I'm interested in the nature of the thing itself. A photograph of someone sleeping tells me nothing about their dream state; a photograph of a corpse tells me nothing about the nature of death. My work is about my life as an event, and I find myself to be very temporal, transient. Duane Michals

Life Work Death Myself Nature Me My Life Nothing Sleeping State Corpse Photograph Dream Tells Photographers Find Temporal About Someone Facts Itself Very Want Interested Transient Event Thing Things

To photograph reality is to photograph nothing. Duane Michals

Reality Nothing Photograph

I write in order to express what the photo itself cannot say. A photograph of my father doesn't tell me what I thought of him, which for me is much more important than what the man looked like. Duane Michals

Art has to address eternal issues. Duane Michals

Art Address Issues Eternal

I still find doing portraits a terrific challenge, but even though I've done hundreds of them, I've never stopped questioning the very nature of portraiture because it deals exclusively with appearances. I've never believed people are what they look like and think it's impossible to really know what people are. Duane Michals

Nature People Impossible Challenge Think Hundreds Though Find Never Like Know Look Terrific Because Deals Still Doing Questioning Very Done Stopped Them Really Appearances Even Believed Portraits

I got a lot of flak originally for writing with photographs, because the great cliche in photography is that one photograph is worth a thousand words, and photographers are usually dodo birds anyway. Duane Michals

Great Photography Writing Words Worth Birds Photograph Thousand Photographers Thousand Words Photographs Cliche Because Got Lot Flak Anyway Originally

In the West, people tend to look at life as spectators, but in the East, people are the thing. Duane Michals

Life People East Tend Look West Thing Spectators

I've done a lot of commercial work. I'm the complete photographer. Duane Michals

Work Complete Photographer Lot Commercial Done

People of my generation who became photographers in the late fifties, early sixties, there were no rewards in photography. There were no museum shows. Maybe MOMA would show something, or Chicago. There were no galleries. Nobody bought photographs. Duane Michals

Photography Generation People Late Photographers Would Photographs My Generation Something Bought Nobody Became Were Chicago Maybe Rewards Sixties Galleries Fifties Show Who Shows Early Museum

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