I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help.
Ruth BernhardNever ever say the word shoot when you are taking a picture with a camera because a camera is not a violent weapon.
Ruth BernhardA person cannot learn to be a photographer. He can only cultivate what he already has. I try to make people aware that they have something very precious to cultivate.
Ruth BernhardOften I have struggled for days to get the image of the photograph to overlap the spirit I see. It is an awesome responsibility, and a lonely one.
Ruth BernhardEach time I make a photograph I celebrate the life I love and the beauty I know and the happiness I have experienced. All my photographs are made like that responding to my intuition... After all these years, I am still motivated by the radiance that light creates when it transforms an object into something magical. What the eye sees is an illusion of what is real. The black-and-white image is yet another transformation. What exactly exists, we may never know.
Ruth BernhardLight is my inspiration, my paint and brush. It is as vital as the model herself. Profoundly significant, it caresses the essential superlative curves and lines. Light I acknowledge as the energy upon which all life on this planet depends.
Ruth BernhardI never look for a photograph. The photograph finds me and says, I'm here! and I say, Yes, I see you. I hear you.
Ruth BernhardMy quest, through the magic of light and shadow, is to isolate, to simplify and to give emphasis to form with the greatest clarity. To indicate the ideal proportion, to reveal sculptural mass and the dominating spirit is my goal.
Ruth BernhardIf you are not passionately devoted to an idea, you can make very pleasant pictures but they won't make you cry.
Ruth BernhardWhat the human eye sees is an illusion of what is real. The black and white image transforms illusions into another reality.
Ruth BernhardI expect photographs to find me. I never thought of looking for them. I instinctively put them there. My intellect had nothing to do with it.
Ruth BernhardWoman has been the target of much that is sordid and cheap, especially in photography. To raise, to elevate, to endorse with timeless reverence the image of woman, has been my mission.
Ruth BernhardIf you can't make the image bigger or more important than what you see, then don't push the button
Ruth BernhardFor me, the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny. Whether working with a human figure or a still life, I am deeply aware of my spiritual connection with it. In my life, as in my work, I am motivated by a great yearning for balance and harmony beyond the realm of human experience, reaching for the essence of oneness with the Universe.
Ruth BernhardFall in love. Every day. With everything. With life. If you can fall in love, you can be a photographer. I think that is absolutely essential.
Ruth BernhardIt is so basic. A human being is an innocent part of nature. Our civilization has distorted this universal quality that allows us to feel at home in our skin. Other animals have coats that they accept, but the human race has yet to come to terms with being nude.
Ruth BernhardLight is my inspiration. My photographic images search for dimensions that words cannot touch- the result of intense responses to personal experiences. I do not wish to "record," but rather to touch upon the illusive meanings which I perceive and try to comprehend in this limitless universe.
Ruth BernhardThe human body represents to me the same universal innocence, timelessness and purity of all seed pods, suggesting the mother as well as the child, the parental as well as the descendant, conceived according to nature's longings.
Ruth Bernhard