The reason I call myself a documentary photographer is the idea of how photographs contain and participate in history.
Catherine OpieI tried to get as far away from home as possible after I graduated from high school because I had a hard time being a kid.
Catherine OpieWhen we were kids, growing up in the sixties, the only images we had of ourselves were either still photographs or 8mm movies.... Now we have video, digital cameras, MP3s, and a million other ways to document ourselves. But the still photograph continues to hold a sense of mystery and awe to me.
Catherine Opie...things become mainstream when they become imaged over and over again. Something happens in relationship to ideas of representation that makes it more palatable or digestible.
Catherine OpieI do photograph things for people to look at 100 years from now. But we're such a mediated society that things become historical the next day.
Catherine OpieLanguage is a very complicated thing, and that's one of the reasons why I like making photographs.
Catherine OpieI really love to drive. It’s really hard for me to be a passenger, even though I get to look around a little bit more, but I’ve gotten really good at driving and looking.
Catherine OpieI always give a print to everybody I photograph, and some of my subjects have told me they have a hard time hanging them up at home.
Catherine OpieThere's a lesbian aesthetic, just as there's gay camp, but I don't know if there's such a thing as 'lesbian art.'
Catherine OpieNature is a dream state at this point, that we almost don't have a real relationship to it unless it's people living off the land and killing our own food and going for it.
Catherine OpieI like that time is marked by each sunrise and sunset whether or not you actually see it.
Catherine Opie