Today we are confronted with reality on the vastest scale mankind has known and this puts a greater responsibility on the photographer.
Berenice AbbottNone. They should just go out and photograph and stop talking about it. That's the only way they are going to find themselves. They can't do it in their heads - they have to go out and do it in the camera and get it on film.
Berenice AbbottI wanted to combine science and photography in a sensible, unemotional way. Some peopleโs ideas of scientific photography is just arty design, something pretty. That was not the idea. The idea was to interpret science sensibly, with good proportion, good balance and good lighting, so we could understand it.
Berenice AbbottPhotography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.
Berenice AbbottTo chart a course, one must have a direction. In reality, the eye is no better than the philosophy behind it. The photographer creates, evolves a better, more selective, more acute eye by looking ever more sharply at what is going on in the world. Like every other means of expression, photography, if it is to be utterly honest and direct, should be related to the life of the times-the pulse of today. The photograph may be presented as finely and artistically as you will, but to merit serious consideration, must be directly connected with the world we live in.
Berenice Abbott