I want to make photographs whose very ambiguity provokes thought, rather than cuts it off prematurely. I want to make pictures that work on a more mysterious level, that approach the truth by a more circuitous route.
John PfahlPeople think the camera steals their soul. Places, I am convinced, are affected in the opposite direction. The more they are photographed (or drawn and painted) the more soul they seem to accumulate.
John PfahlWhile making my picture window photographs, I came to think that every room was like a gigantic camera forever pointed at the same view.
John PfahlIt is not without trepidation that I have appropriated the codes of the Sublime and the Picturesque in my work. After all, serious photographers have spent most of this century trying to expunge such extravagances from their art. The tradition lives on, mostly in calendars and picture postcards. I was challenged to rework and revitalize that which had been so roundly denigrated.
John Pfahl