Gisele Freund quotes:
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Before the first press pictures, the ordinary man would visualize only those events that took place near him, on his street or in his village. Photography opened a window. As the reader's outlook expanded, the world began to shrink.
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For me, at least, studying my subjects first and knowing them personally was essential to taking a good picture.
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...in the theatre the stage keeps the audience aware of the fictional nature of the action. The reader poring over a magazine, on the other hand, identifies what he sees in the photographs as real.
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Photography is the typical means of expression of a society founded on a civilization of technicians, conscious of the aims it has set for itself... Its power of exactly reproducing external reality, a power inherent in its technique, lends it a documentary character and makes it appear as the most faithful and impartial process for the reproduction of social life.
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When you do not like human beings, you cannot make good portraits.
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Yet it seems so easy to take a photograph! One forgets that, apart from the technical aspects, photography can be a mental creation and the affirmation of a personality. What is marvelous about a photograph is that its possibilities are infinite; there aren't any subjects 'done to death'.
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The lens, that allegedly impartial eye, permits all possible distortions of reality... The importance of photography lies not only in the fact that it is a creation, but above all in the fact that it is one of the most effective means of shaping our ideas and influencing our behavior.