Roy was just another bureaucrat to me, but I realized very soon that without Roy this thing would have died.
From Ben Shahn
Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.
Now, when I came on to Washington to begin my job, I was so interested in photography at that time that I really would have preferred to work with Stryker than with my department, which was more artistic if you wish.
Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
It's pretty hard to measure influence of written or visual material.
It's a little bit like my inability to read a guide book before I go anywhere. I can read it after I've been there and by the same logic I refuse to accept any technical stunts from anybody. I refused to learn more than I knew and I confess I missed a great deal.
In the South or in the mine country, wherever you point the camera there is a picture.
In '38, this time I did a job for Mr. Stryker. I went on his payroll at about half the salary I was getting before, to cover what he called Harvest in Ohio.
I've been asked a great deal about the influence I've had with my work and it's impossible to say, you know.
I was primarily interested in people, and people in action, so that I did nothing photographically in the sense of doing buildings for their own sake or a still life or anything like that.
3 perspectives
2 perspectives
1 perspectives