What Is Photography?
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is a passport into life in the world outside of ourselves, as well as a powerful way to come to understand who we are.
Who is this person who, through the possession of a camera, has made a profound connection to another human being? Who is that person who can photograph a surgery, hike over crevasses, climb fire escapes for the view, wander in and out of crowded, foreign spaces, fall in love with the
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is necessary and undying, it is the ultimate way for a story to be told.
—Jo Bailon, portrait and fashion photographer
Photograph © Cory Rice
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is a tool of empowerment that has allowed me and millions of others to tell our stories.
Growing up in a religious family with very traditional values, my true identity was lost. Like many other girls from Iran, from the age of seven, I had to cover up. My school photo shows a girl barely visible from layers of cloth covering her up. You say to yourself, this is not my true-self, but this photo will be
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is the outcome of a battle between the two sides of my brain. Before my drone lifts off, I have no idea what the ground around me looks like from above. When I’m flying, my left brain is seeking the attention of my right brain to try to identify any deadly hazards such as helicopters or powerlines and to pay attention to the quickly draining battery levels. But my right brain is fascinated by the
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography registers the world’s optical unconscious: the traumas and ecstasies, the losses and joys that forge the true meaning of our lives in ways not ruled by conscious thought.
— Ulrich Baer, author, podcaster, creator
Photograph by © Cory Rice
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is a way for me to depict the injustices I saw when I was a criminal defense lawyer. It brings together my journalism and legal backgrounds, allows me to snoop into my subjects’ lives, takes me to places I wouldn’t ordinarily explore, and opens up my own world.
—Sara Bennett, photographer
Photograph by © Cory Rice
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
I have spent over 20 years working with historical photographs and, for me, photography is the most powerful way for our pasts to connect with our present. No more compelling way to recognize who we might be than by seeing another version of ourselves—from another time, another culture, or another place. And from crisis to catastrophe to impossible triumphs, photography has documented it all. We are, of course
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
When I photograph someone, I try to capture the person’s feelings, so when someone else sees that image, they can feel what that person is feeling. For me, photography is capturing the greatness of a person, to find the truth of each moment.
—Kwame Brathwaite, photographer
Photograph by © Cory Rice
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is very personal for me. Every interesting experience in my life and every fascinating person I have met along the way have been the result of trying to create a photograph. Photography is the catapult that has thrown me head-first into situations I’d never find myself in otherwise. These can be equally beautiful, hilarious, and horrifying, sometimes all at the same time.
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by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is an art medium to create work using real life as the art material.
—Pixy Liao, artist, actress, musician
Photograph © Cory Rice
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Every photograph tells a story, fiction or non-fiction, but the best photographs are like poems: they make you feel something true.
—Morrigan McCarthy, National Picture Editor at the New York Times
Photograph by © Cory Rice
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
I don’t know what it is, but for me, it’s just a reflection of the self, or an attempt to understand the self through the outside world, and maybe communicate that to others.
Every photo is a self-portrait. When I get to choose what I shoot, I shoot what I like, what I see as good, what I find reflects some aspect of myself... and when I don’t get to choose, it becomes “what is it about this that I like”… or
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Photography is storytelling. It helps our human minds remember our stories, our places, our people. It reminds us of the things that we celebrate, the things we hold close to our hearts and the deepest love that fills our days. It is the safe-keeper of memory. Seeing old photos can make the heart skip a beat, burst into laughter, or tear up. Photography is the tangible vault of memories when our own memory is not
by John Harris and Cory Rice ·Posted
Fine art photography is like writing poetry, taking an everyday language and asking it to do things that are a little less conventional. But photography as a whole is a shared construction, it is what we are willing to call photography—no one gets to author it, it is hard to essentialize it, it’s what the group says that photography is.
What we call photography has so many different materialities, uses, and