I work only in 35mm format. I have a small bag so I can carry all my films with me for one or two months. That means I am completely independent and free.
-Sebastião Salgado
Click for larger image.
Church Gate Station, Bombay, Inida 1995 © Sebastião Salgado
Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
HAMBURG, West Germany—Around the neck of a young man hangs a sign that reads, "I am looking for any kind of work," December 1952-January 1953. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
DESSAU, Germany—A transit camp, located between the American and Soviet zones, was organized for refugees, political prisoners, POWs, forced laborers, and displaced persons returning from the Eastern front of Germany after having been liberated by the Soviet army. A Belgian woman and former Gestapo informer, being identified as she tried to hide in the crowd, April 1945. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
MUNICH, West Germany—Oktoberfest, 1961. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
HAMBURG, West Germany—December 1952-January 1953. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
André Kertész | Landing Pigeon, New York, 1960
This was taken around 59th Street where they had demolished the houses, and I saw a pigeon flying in and out. The original idea for this photograph dates back to my days in Paris, where I also saw some old run-down houses and wanted to photograph them with a pigeon. But the pigeon never came. Here in New York I sat and waited. Time and time again I went back to the same place, but it was never right. Then one day I saw the lonely pigeon. I took maybe two or three pictures. The moment was here. I had waited maybe thirty years for that instant.
-André Kertész, Kertész on Kertész
Ultimately, photography is about who you are. It is seeking the truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit.
– Leonard Freed
JERUSALEM—Bible study, 1967. © Leonard Freed / Magnum Photos
I think that a lot of people, especially people who work for fashion magazines, feel that their photographs at times are really pretty much discarded or thrown away immediately because when you work for a magazine people today really don’t save magazines like they used to. I just think that as long as one can work and have a good time at it and at least learn something then you’re not discarding what you do. You go out and do a photograph. It should be all about getting onto another photograph.
-Bruce Weber
Featuring Daria Werbowy, Kate Moss, Lara Stone, Sasha Pivarova and styled by Alex White for the July 2008 issue of W Magazine.
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
© Bruce Weber, W Magazine
Rather than a profession, photography has always been a passion for me, a passion closer to an obsession.
-Marc Riboud
CHINA—Chinese actress Gong Li during the filming of To Live by Zhang Yimou, November 1993. © Marc Riboud / Magnum Photos
Jim Carroll by Terry Richardson
Excerpt from The Basketball Diaries:
Summer 65: Fucked up yesterday, lost our last game in the summer 15-and-under league up at George Washington High School, and that deuced us out of the championship game today. We had a good squad, mostly cats from down the block in the projects but they had a rule that no Varsity players could play. That ruined our chances of using big Lewie Alcindor even though he’s from the neighborhood and all. I mean, shit, most of the teams got ringers but it’s a little difficult to sneak in a seven foot All-Everything cat onto a court. He can’t exactly use a fucking pair of sunglasses, dig? So I go up to watch the game today and pick up my trophy for the all-league team and what a hassle is steaming as I bop into the gym. THE SUGAR BOWL ALL-STARS, one of the teams playing, are in a rage bitching about the ringers on the RUTGERS team. So true! those cats didn’t have a dude under eighteen running for them, none of them played school ball, but they were some of the best playground players in Harlem. I walked over and was rapping to a few friends, Vaughn Harper, an All-American from Boys High, and Earl Manigault, a Harlem legend of 5 ft. 10 in. who can take a half dollar off the top of a backboard. He’s invariably on and off his school team because of drug scenes and other shit. These two cats are, with big Lew, the best high school players in the city. Finally the captain of SUGAR BOWL points over to us and tells the other team and the man who runs the gig that if they’re gonna use that team, that their team’s gonna use Harper, “Goat” Manigault, and me. The bossman axes the idea of letting in Harper and “Goat” but says they can use me, which is fine with the other team who don’t even know who the fuck this white boy is. Before I say a fucking word I get a uniform tossed in my mug and since there’re bunches of chicks in the stands, my new team mates are huddling around me and I whip on the shit and start warming up. Big fucking difference I’m gonna make ’cause we need leapers for the boards and no backcourt dude like me. Anyway the slaughter starts and I’m hitting long jumpers like a fucker (I gotta say that I always burn up that gym, something about it that I just can’t miss, crazy) so we’re holding our own by the half and I got twenty-eight points, each move of which I make sticks out like a hardon because I’m the only whiteman on the court and looking around, in the entire fucking place, in fact; my bright blond-red hair making me the whitest whitey this league has ever seen. So in short we made a good show for a team our age, but can’t keep up with the other dudes and lose by ten, but that ain’t bad and I got myself forty-seven points and at least got to play for once with these cats I’ve always had to play against in various tournaments since Biddy League days. Then to bust all kinds of balls, the bossman gets some college scout in the stands to testify the other team got at least three ringers he knows and we are awarded the champ bit. After the gold is handed out and all (I didn’t get a trophy for the game ’cause they were one short and I had to say “fuck it,” but got an outofsight plaque for All-League), we go in a corner and pose a team picture for the Harlem paper, “The Amsterdam News.” We’re waiting for the birdie to click when the photog calls over the SUGAR BOWL coach and whispers something to him who then walks over to me and mumbles, “Dig, my man, don’t know how to say this but for, well, …” I cut him short and told I got the message and stepped out of the pix. I guess I would have messed up the texture of the shot or something. Or maybe they didn’t want to let the readers get to see that the high scorer was a fucking white boy.
-Jim Carroll, The Basketball Diaries
Von Unwerth seems less of an auteur directing her subjects than a co-conspirator who intimately knows the inner lives of these girls who want to have fun.
-American Photo
Evan Rachel Wood in the Italian edition of Max magazine, Ellen Von Unwerth
I think that, because I know what it feels like to be in front of the camera, I can be more sympathetic to my subjects. Being in front of the lens, you are very vulnerable. It’s not a nice feeling, and I don’t miss it. But it’s very helpful to know exactly what it’s like. When I was a model I hated when I wasn’t allowed to move, so I love movement and I encourage my subjects to play around, to move and to be silly.
-Ellen Von Unwerth
Evan Rachel Wood in the Italian edition of Max magazine, Ellen Von Unwerth
When it is a good shoot , it is better then a party! Gorgeous girls, loud music and a bottle of Champagne, or two…
-Ellen Von Unwerth
Evan Rachel Wood in the Italian edition of Max magazine, Ellen Von Unwerth
I’m just trying to make beautiful pictures. I don’t see my works as exploitative. They’re just cheeky, they’re fun, and the models aren’t complaining.
-Ellen Von Unwerth
Evan Rachel Wood in the Italian edition of Max magazine, Ellen Von Unwerth
My favourite photographers are Helmut Newton and Jaques Henri Lartigue: one for the strength, sexuality and humour and the other one for the lightness and charm.
-Ellen Von Unwerth
Evan Rachel Wood in the Italian edition of Max magazine, Ellen Von Unwerth
My boyfriend 22 years ago gave me a camera and a crash course about how it works, and that is how I started. I did reportage pictures in Kenya and shot my model friends, after I made them up and dressed them with my clothes. I knew already how to print black and white photos, as we had a lab in our tiny apartment.
-Ellen Von Unwerth
Evan Rachel Wood in the Italian edition of Max magazine, Ellen Von Unwerth
I think that women open up more to a female photographer. It’s like little girls playing around. You can be a bit naughty and do things you wouldn’t do in front of boys. It’s more relaxed somehow. I think it’s an empowering experience – and no, I don’t believe they are objectified.
-Ellen Von Unwerth
Evan Rachel Wood in the Italian edition of Max magazine, Ellen Von Unwerth
William McFadden has compiled an invaluable archive of Ellen von Unwerth’s work here.
Once, Henri [Cartier-Bresson] rang me in Paris and said, ‘Josef, [André] Kertész is in town, you must come to dinner and meet him.’ I said, ‘Henri, I love his pictures but I do not need to meet him.’ ‘No, you do not understand, you have to meet him because we three, we are of the same family.’ At the time, this seems to me to be an unbelievable thing to say. Now, though, when I look back from a distance, I can see that maybe there is something in that.
-Josef Koudelka
Stairs of Montmartre, Paris 1925, André Kertész
PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia—1992. © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos
Hyères, France, 1932 © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
Brassed and beautiful. One of the great things about Leicas is that when they are used well over the years, brassing takes over the body. The black paint slowly disappears to reveal the warmth of the soft metal below. All of the Leicas that I have continually bought and sold over the years have been production M6 bodies and the top plates are made of a zinc alloy.
No brassing for me unless I buy an MP or an M4 or earlier.
Jim Marshall’s Leica M4:
Jim Marshall's Leica M4
It’s a very fine line to draw about taking pictures, you know, not invading someone’s privacy.
-Jim Marshall
Elliott Erwitt’s Leica M3:
Elliott Erwitt's Leica M3
All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.
-Elliot Erwitt
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