Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.
Berenice AbbottWhat we need of equipment is this: let it possess as good a structure as the real-life content that surrounds us. We need more simplifications to free us for seeing.
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 AbbottWhat the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera (the lens) notes with relentless fidelity.
Berenice AbbottThe challenge for me has first been to see things as they are, whether a portrait, a city street, or a bouncing ball. In a word, I have tried to be objective. What I mean by objectivity is not the objectivity of a machine, but of a sensible human being with the mystery of personal selection at the heart of it. The second challenge has been to impose order onto the things seen and to supply the visual context and the intellectual framework - that to me is the art of photography.
Berenice Abbott