CATHERINE OPIE

I do photograph things for people to look at 100 years from now. But we're such a mediated society that things become historical the next day.

Language is a very complicated thing, and that's one of the reasons why I like making photographs.

My dad was a very conservative Republican businessman, so obviously I considered it a problem when I realized I was a lesbian.

Light is everything in photographs and has to be considered in all situations.

I really love to drive. It's really hard for me to be a passenger, even though I get to look around a little bit more, but I've gotten really good at driving and looking.

The reason I call myself a documentary photographer is the idea of how photographs contain and participate in history.

I'm a complete supporter of Obama and kind of in love with him.

I'm kind of a twisted social documentary photographer.

I'm very empathic to the construction of masculinity within our culture and how we build these identities up.

Nature is a dream state at this point, that we almost don't have a real relationship to it unless it's people living off the land and killing our own food and going for it.

The reason I call myself a documentary photographer is the idea of how photographs contain and participate in history.

I'm very interested in the language of photography in relationship to painting.

Light is everything in photographs and has to be considered in all situations.

My dad was a very conservative Republican businessman, so obviously I considered it a problem when I realized I was a lesbian.

The biggest cliche in photography is sunrise and sunset.

I tried to get as far away from home as possible after I graduated from high school because I had a hard time being a kid.

I'm very empathic to the construction of masculinity within our culture and how we build these identities up.

One of the greatest things about being an artist is, as you get older, if you keep working hard in relationship to what you want the world to be and how you want it to become, there is a history of interesting growth that resonates with different moments in your life.

I really love to drive. It's really hard for me to be a passenger, even though I get to look around a little bit more, but I've gotten really good at driving and looking.

I go back and forth, but I never wanted to be the photographer of the gay and lesbian community. I will wave a rainbow flag proudly, but I am not a singular identity. I think a singular identity isn't very interesting, and I'm a little bit more multifaceted as a person than that.

I always give a print to everybody I photograph, and some of my subjects have told me they have a hard time hanging them up at home.

There's a lesbian aesthetic, just as there's gay camp, but I don't know if there's such a thing as 'lesbian art.'

I like that time is marked by each sunrise and sunset whether or not you actually see it.

Nature is a dream state at this point, that we almost don't have a real relationship to it unless it's people living off the land and killing our own food and going for it.

I'm a complete supporter of Obama and kind of in love with him.

I want to seduce my viewers and be able to hold them with the work. Much of that is done in terms of formalist ideas that I bring to the work.

I'm kind of a twisted social documentary photographer.

Language is a very complicated thing, and that's one of the reasons why I like making photographs.

I do photograph things for people to look at 100 years from now. But we're such a mediated society that things become historical the next day.

...things become mainstream when they become imaged over and over again. Something happens in relationship to ideas of representation that makes it more palatable or digestible.

When we were kids, growing up in the sixties, the only images we had of ourselves were either still photographs or 8mm movies.... Now we have video, digital cameras, MP3s, and a million other ways to document ourselves. But the still photograph continues to hold a sense of mystery and awe to me.