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
Photographers who come up with power never get accused of imitating anyone else even though they photograph the same broom, same street, same portraits.
We emphasized the creativeness that happens at the moment of seeing over the kind that takes place in the dark room.
Different levels of photography require different levels of understanding and skill. A "press the button, let George do the rest" photographer needs little or no technical knowledge of photography. A zone system photographer takes more responsibility. He visualizes before he presses the button, and afterwards calibrates for predictable print values.
Some of the young photographers today enter photography where I leave off. My "grandchildren" astound me. What I worked for they seem to be born with. So I wonder where Their affirmations of Spirit will lead. My wish for them is that their unfolding proceeds to fullness of Spirit, however astonishing or anguished their lives.
Students were taught by doing.
I have often photographed when I am not in tune with nature but the photographs look as if I had been. So I conclude that something in nature says, 'Come and take my photograph.' So I do, regardless of how I feel.
Let the subject generate its own photographs. Become a camera.
Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts.
We could teach photography as a way to make a living, and best of all, somehow to get students to experience for themselves photography as a way of life.
Reaching a 'creative' state of mind thru positive action is considered preferable to waiting for 'inspiration'.
The photographer projects himself into everything he sees, identifying himself with everything in order to know it and to feel it better.
Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.
Photography is a language more universal than words.
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.