I believe in the invisible. I do not believe in the definitive reality of things around us. For me, reality is the intuition and the imagination and the quiet voice inside my head that says: isn't that extraordinary? The things in our lives are the shadows of reality, just as we ourselves are shadows.
Duane MichalsI got a lot of flak originally for writing with photographs, because the great cliche in photography is that one photograph is worth a thousand words, and photographers are usually dodo birds anyway.
Duane MichalsFlowers construct the most charming geometries: circles like the sun, ovals, cones, curlicues and a variety of triangular eccentricities, which when viewed with the eye of a magnifying glass seem a Lilliputian frieze of psychedelic silhouettes.
Duane MichalsI never photograph sunsets and I never photograph moonrises. I'm not interested in what things look like.
Duane MichalsPhotography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old manโs face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a buildingโand then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. Itโs the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing.
Duane Michals