MATT GILLESPIE | PHOTOGRAPHY: January 2011

quotes to remember

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” Elliott Erwitt
“It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.” Paul Strand quotes (American Photographer, 1890-1976)
My photographs don’t go below the surface. They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. But whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I’ve lost what’s really there…been seduced by someone else’s standard of beauty or by the sitter’s own idea of the best in him. That’s not usually the best. So each sitting becomes a contest. - Richard Avedon - 1980