First you study photography, then you practice photography, then you serve photography, and finally one becomes photography.
Interpretation
The quote outlines the progression of becoming a true artist through education, practice, service, and ultimately integration with one's art.
Ralph Gibson's quote reflects on the journey of mastering photography as an art form. It emphasizes that one must first learn the technical aspects of photography, then dedicate time to practice, followed by sharing their knowledge and skill with others, before finally reaching a level where photography becomes an intrinsic part of their identity. This illustrates a deep commitment to the art and shows how personal expression can evolve from discipline to embodiment.
In practice
A photographer might use this quote to inspire students at a workshop about the stages of becoming an artist.
Even though fixed in time, a photograph evokes as much feeling as that which comes from music or dance. Whatever the mode - from the snapshot to the decisive moment to multi-media montage - the intent and purpose of photography is to render in visual terms feelings and experiences that often elude the ability of words to describe. In any case, the eyes have it, and the imagination will always soar farther than was expected.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
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Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious lives.
Style ain't nothing but keeping the same idea from beginning to end. Everybody got it.
I love music, I've always done music, felt it on a spiritual level and I write for myself and not anybody else.
Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
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