There are those photographers who have made a whole career doing commercial work but have never had a museum show, and then there are others who've only had museum shows but couldn't survive for five seconds in the real world of photography. But I've done absolutely everything.
Interpretation
Duane Michals emphasizes the diverse paths photographers can take and the importance of versatility in their careers.
In this quote, Duane Michals contrasts two types of photographers: those who find success in commercial work without having a broader artistic recognition, and those who achieve acclaim in art galleries but struggle in the commercial realm. By stating that he has done 'absolutely everything,' Michals highlights the significance of being multifaceted and adaptable in the photography world, suggesting that true success lies in the ability to thrive in both commercial and artistic environments.
In practice
In a speech about creative careers, you might say, 'As Duane Michals once noted, success can come from embracing both commercial and artistic paths in photography.'
Photographers usually want to photograph facts and things. But I'm interested in the nature of the thing itself. A photograph of someone sleeping tells me nothing about their dream state; a photograph of a corpse tells me nothing about the nature of death. My work is about my life as an event, and I find myself to be very temporal, transient.
Flowers construct the most charming geometries: circles like the sun, ovals, cones, curlicues and a variety of triangular eccentricities, which when viewed with the eye of a magnifying glass seem a Lilliputian frieze of psychedelic silhouettes.
I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.
A lot of photographers walk around looking for something 'out there,' but I'm very much interested in what's 'in here.'
Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man’s face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building—and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It’s the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing.
When you go to a great concert, you feel this arc, almost like the music of a well-chosen set takes you on this trip through emotions and through various forms of intellectual engagement.
The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself.
One does not read a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks with hopes that it will grant him a career in engineering; he does so because poetry helps him see something in the world that he might not have seen before.
If you had a sign above every studio door saying ‘This Studio is a Musical Instrument’ it would make such a different approach to recording.
Music was never just a hobby for me. I'd pick up a guitar every day to work on whatever I was writing at the time. I would put my ideas in songs the way some people might put them in diaries or journals.
There is a music for lonely hearts nearly always. If the music dies down there is a silence. Almost the same as the movement of music. To know silence perfectly is to know music.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.