The Spark of Accident: Peace to Jim Johnston and Family

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Peace to Jim Johnston and Family

The indefatigable Jim Johnston, whose blog, Politics, Theory and Photography is a model of openminded and wide ranging intellectual exploration, has suffered the loss of a son -- my heart goes out to him and his family.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

“Immerse yourself in a picture long enough and you will realize how alive the contradictions are the most precise technology can give its products a magical value, such as a painted picture can never again have for us. No matter how artful the photographer, no matter how carefully posed his subject, the beholder feels an irresistible urge to search such a picture for the tiny spark of accident, of the Here and Now, with which reality has so to speak seared the subject, to find the inconspicuous spot where in the immediacy of that long-forgotten moment the future nests so eloquently that we, looking back, may rediscover it.”

Walter Benjamin,

"A Small History of Photography"

On Intention

"I never have taken a picture I’ve intended. They’re always better or worse." Diane Arbus

"A photograph is a moral decision taken in one-eighth of a second." Salman Rushdie

"If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time." Robert Doisneau

"Sometimes you have to play for a long time to be able to play like yourself." Miles Davis

"The great Henry Aaron hit a home run 755 times in his career, but failed to do so almost 12,000 times." John Szarkowski on Garry Winogrand

"If you don’t ever make mistakes, you’re not trying. You’re not playing at the edge of your ability." Artie Shaw

"I always include Luck in the budget." Eliot Erwitt

"You mustn't want. You must be receptive." Henri Cartier Bresson

"Me, I do not try to understand. For me, the most beautiful thing is to wake up, to go out, and to look. At everything. Without anyone telling me "You should look at this or that." I look at everything and I try to find what interests me, because when I set out, I don't yet know what will interest me." Josef Koudelka