The picture is not made by the photographer, the picture is more good or less good in function of the relationship that you have with the people you photograph.
We are animals, born from the land with the other species. Since we've been living in cities, we've become more and more stupid, not smarter. What made us survive all these hundreds of thousands of years is our spirituality; the link to our land.
I don't believe a person has a style. What people have is a way of photographing what is inside them. What is there comes out.
It's more important for a photographer to have very good shoes, than to have a very good camera
The language that photography has is a formal language. Any photographer is doing something formal. If it's formal, then it must be an aesthetic way to communicate.
I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions.
I work alone. Humans are incredible, because when you come alone, they will receive you, they accept you, they protect you, they give you all things that you need, and they teach you all things you must know. When you come with two persons or three persons, you have a group in front of them. They don't discuss with the new persons what is important to them.
I'm not an artist. An artist makes an object. Me, it's not an object, I work in history, I'm a storyteller.
I have a way to photograph. You work with space, you have a camera, you have a frame, and then a fraction of a second. It's very instinctive. What you do is a fraction of a second, it's there and it's not there. But in this fraction of a second comes your past, comes your future, comes your relation with people, comes your ideology, comes your hate, comes your love - all together in this fraction of a second, it materializes there.
Photography is full of symbolism, it's a symbolic language. You have to be able to materialize all your thoughts in one single image.
I don't want anyone to appreciate the light or the palette of tones. I want my pictures to inform, to provoke discussion - and to raise money.
For me, art is such a wide concept - anything can be art.
It's not the photographer who makes the picture, but the person being photographed.
I discovered that close to half the planet is 'pristine.' We live in towns such as London, Paris or Sao Paulo and have the impression that all the pristine areas are gone, but they are not.
What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this. I don't want people to look at them and appreciate the light and the palate of tones. I want them to look inside and see what the pictures represent, and the kind of people I photograph.
I have tried to bring about better communication between people. I believe that humanitarian photography is like economics. Economy is a kind of sociology, as is documentary photography.
In the end, the only heritage we have is our planet, and I have decided to go to the most pristine places on the planet and photograph them in the most honest way I know, with my point of view, and of course it is in black and white, because it is the only thing I know how to do.
We live in a society where we never prepare people to be a community.
My way of photographing is my way of life. I photograph from my experience, my way of seeing things.
I am a former economist. I never went to photography school to learn photography.
We are one human race, and there must be understanding among all men. For those who look at the problems of today, my big hope is that they understand. That they understand that the population is quite big enough, that they must be informed that they must have economic development, that they must have social development, and must be integrated into all parts of the world.
Of course, I won't be abandoning photography, because it is my life.
I looked through a lens and ended up abandoning everything else.
I have been photographing the portrait of an end of an era, as machines and computers replace human workers. What we have in these pictures is an archeology.
When I was just starting out, I met Cartier-Bresson. He wasn't young in age but, in his mind, he was the youngest person I'd ever met. He told me it was necessary to trust my instincts, be inside my work, and set aside my ego. In the end, my photography turned out very different to his, but I believe we were coming from the same place.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: