Ferdinando Scianna | Coney Island

Posted: January 21st, 2013 | Author: doug | Filed under: Film, New York City, Photography, Quotes

NEW YORK CITY—Coney Island, 1985. © Ferdinando Scianna / Magnum Photos

A photograph is not created by a photographer. What [he/she does] is just open a little window and capture it. The world then writes itself on the film. The act of the photographer is closer to reading than it is to writing. They are the readers of the world.

– Ferdinando Scianna

Tags: Brooklyn, Coney Island, Ferdinando Scianna, Magnum Photos, New York City, Street Photography, Women | No Comments »

Frank O’Hara | A Blade of Grass

Posted: December 12th, 2012 | Author: doug | Filed under: New York City, Poetry

Back Table at the Five Spot [David Smith(standing on left), Frank O'Hara (seated), Larry Rivers, and Grace Hartigan] © Burt Glinn, 1957

One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass.

- Frank O’Hara

Tags: Bowery, Burt Glinn, Frank O'Hara, Grace Hartigan, Jazz, Larry Rivers, New York City, The Five Spot | 2 Comments »

Arnold Newman | W. Eugene Smith

Posted: November 6th, 2012 | Author: doug | Filed under: Film, New York City, Photography, Quotes

W. Eugene Smith, 1977 © Arnold Newman

The man who put it so beautifully was Eugene Smith who is a very dear friend of mine, probably the greatest photojournalist that ever lived. Cartier-Bresson is not a photojournalist. He takes individual images if you really look at them. When he came back from Japan, and he had a crowd of younger photographers around him at the ICP where they discussing his Minamata story, he began to realize as a lot of us did in that room, that they were thinking that if they only had access to a subject like Minamata, they too could become great photojournalists.

He realized this and what he said was, wait a minute. First, you have to be a good artist before you can be a good photojournalist.

And that is the essence of our art.

- Arnold Newman