Minor White
Minor White
Minor Martin Whitewas an American photographer, theoretician, critic and educator. He combined an intense interest in how people viewed and understood photographs with a personal vision that was guided by a variety of spiritual and intellectual philosophies. Starting in Oregon in 1937 and continuing until he died in 1976, White made thousands of black-and-white and color photographs of landscapes, people and abstract subject matter, created with both technical mastery and a strong visual sense of light and shadow. He taught...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth9 July 1908
CountryUnited States of America
If all your life means to you is water running over rocks, then photograph it, but I want to create something that would not have existed without me.
At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.
When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don't leave until you have captured its essence.
The reason why we want to remember an image varies: because we simply 'love it,' or dislike it so intensely that it becomes compulsive, or because it has made us realize something about ourselves, or has brought about some slight change in us. Perhaps the reader can recall some image, after the seeing of which he has never been quite the same.
One does not photograph something simply for 'what it is', but 'for what else it is.
The camera is first a means of self-discovery and a means of self-growth. The artist has one thing to say - himself.
...insight, vision, moments of revelation. During those rare moments something overtakes the man and he becomes the tool of a greater Force; the servant of, willing or unwilling depending on his degree of awakeness. The photograph, then, is a message more than a mirror, and the mans a messenger who happens to be a photographer.
There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.
All photographs are self-portraits.
No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.
I'm always mentally photographing everything as practice.
One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.
When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously.
The development of a love of medium and a responsibility for one's own pictures is an overall goal.