Ruth Bernhard
Ruth Bernhard
Ruth Bernhardwas a German-born American photographer...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth14 October 1905
CountryGermany
flying pants likes
Remember God likes us best when we are flying by the seats of our pants,
looks photograph find-me
I never look for a photograph. The photograph finds me and says, I'm here! and I say, Yes, I see you. I hear you.
home animal race
It is so basic. A human being is an innocent part of nature. Our civilization has distorted this universal quality that allows us to feel at home in our skin. Other animals have coats that they accept, but the human race has yet to come to terms with being nude.
mother children body
The human body represents to me the same universal innocence, timelessness and purity of all seed pods, suggesting the mother as well as the child, the parental as well as the descendant, conceived according to nature's longings.
photography trying body
Every day I am aware of the flow and constant change; perhaps I am at the edge of discovering what more our bodies might be able to teach about the spirit of life. At least, I am always exploring and trying to understand our relationship to the whole universe.
lonely responsibility spirit
Often I have struggled for days to get the image of the photograph to overlap the spirit I see. It is an awesome responsibility, and a lonely one.
life used
#1 Never Get Used to Anything.
said
I always said 'yes' to everything.
real eye black-and-white
Each time I make a photograph I celebrate the life I love and the beauty I know and the happiness I have experienced. All my photographs are made like that responding to my intuition... After all these years, I am still motivated by the radiance that light creates when it transforms an object into something magical. What the eye sees is an illusion of what is real. The black-and-white image is yet another transformation. What exactly exists, we may never know.
Everything is one and I am one with it.
universe unimportant
There is nothing unimportant in the universe.
photography spiritual emotional
For me, the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny. Whether working with a human figure or a still life, I am deeply aware of my spiritual connection with it. In my life, as in my work, I am motivated by a great yearning for balance and harmony beyond the realm of human experience, reaching for the essence of oneness with the Universe.
photography important buttons
If you can't make the image bigger or more important than what you see, then don't push the button
photography target timeless
Woman has been the target of much that is sordid and cheap, especially in photography. To raise, to elevate, to endorse with timeless reverence the image of woman, has been my mission.