The way I would describe a pictorial is that it is a picture that makes everybody say โAaaaah,โ with five vowels when they see it. It is something you would like to hang on the wall. The french word โphotogeniqueโ defines it better than anything in English. It is a picture which must have quality, drama, and it must, in addition, be as good technically as you can possible make it.
Alfred EisenstaedtToday's photographers think differently. Many can't see real light anymore. They think only in terms of strobe - sure, it all looks beautiful but it's not really seeing. If you have the eyes to see it, the nuances of light are already there on the subject's face. If your thinking is confined to strobe light sources, your palette becomes very mean - which is the reason I photograph only in available light.
Alfred EisenstaedtThe way I would describe a pictorial is that it is a picture that makes everybody say โAaaaah,โ with five vowels when they see it. It is something you would like to hang on the wall. The french word โphotogeniqueโ defines it better than anything in English. It is a picture which must have quality, drama, and it must, in addition, be as good technically as you can possible make it.
Alfred EisenstaedtI will be remembered when I'm in heaven. People won't remember my name, but they will know the photographer who did that picture of that nurse being kissed by the sailor at the end of World War II. Everybody remembers that.
Alfred EisenstaedtIt's important to understand it's OK to control the subject. If most editorial stories were photographed just as they are, editors would end up throwing most in the waste basket. You have to work hard at making an editorial picture. You need to re-stage things, rearrange things so that they work for the story, with truth and without lying.
Alfred Eisenstaedt