Through the experience of art, the powers of perception and transformation can be awakened, in both those who create it and those who re-perceive it.
John Paul CaponigroDifferent people can photograph the same things with the same tools and create such different images.
John Paul CaponigroTo be sure, not all moments are equally fleeting. Some moments last longer than others. And certain events do reoccur more than once and even recur repeatedly. Sometimes you do get more than one chance. Sometimes you don't. It helps to know how long a window of opportunity you have and if you'll get another chance.
John Paul CaponigroWe don't have enough words for photography. Can you imagine writers having only one word for writing?
John Paul CaponigroImages are altered in many ways, to many degrees, and for many reasons, so it's important for viewers to be informed of both.
John Paul CaponigroWe're responsible for everything that's included in the frame. We're also responsible for what's not included in the frame. We're responsible for the way we frame the world.
John Paul CaponigroAll photographs are about light. The great majority of photographs record light as a way of describing objects in space. A few photographs are less about objects and more about the space that contains them. Still fewer photographs are about light itself.
John Paul CaponigroWe are the strongest filter we can place before the lens. We point the lens both outward and inward.
John Paul CaponigroEducation, or enrichment, is a dynamic, evolving, lifelong process. Every time you look, sensitively with awareness, your vision grows.
John Paul CaponigroWe talk about the vulnerability involved in sharing our work publicly. I don't think we talk enough about the real vulnerability involved in making art; if we truly engage the process we are changed by it.
John Paul CaponigroThe most important question is, 'Am I asking the most important question?' The second most important question is, 'Am I asking the most important question in the most important way?'
John Paul CaponigroIt's one thing to make a beautiful thing; it's another thing to make a living thing.
John Paul CaponigroMany oriental cultures make a distinction between two ways of looking - 'hard eyes' and 'soft eyes'. When we look with hard eyes, we see specific details with sharp focus, but we don't see the relationships between different details as well. When we look with soft eyes we see the relationships between everything in our field of vision, but with this softer focus, we don't see all the details as clearly. It's possible to look in two ways at once.
John Paul CaponigroInquiry is more important than answers, for it is the questions we ask and the way in which we ask them that defines us.
John Paul CaponigroPhotographs are never records of the way things are; they're records of the way things were.
John Paul CaponigroI'd say seeking is one of the fundamental artistic impulses. Art is about discovery. The medium is not the message.
John Paul CaponigroIt's important that we regularly reconsider, revise, and expand our practices, as our capabilities and needs evolve, both to strengthen our understanding of them and to promote our awareness of new practices and their conscientious uses.
John Paul CaponigroMany times we are tempted to defer to the documents we create, rather than the direct experiences we have.
John Paul CaponigroIt takes asking many questions from many perspectives to truly understand something.
John Paul CaponigroPhotography extends our perception allowing us to see and experience more - second hand.
John Paul Caponigro