Susan Sontag Quotes

The thing I loved the most about being art director was picking the photographers and working with them.

What we must demand from the photographer is the ability to put such a caption beneath his picture as will rescue it from the ravages of modishness and confer upon it a revolutionary use value.

The great thing about having spent all this time on film sets is that I've been able to watch directors and how they work. I now know that this is what I want to do as well: to tell stories visually. But it's definitely my vision that I want to put across, nobody else's.

I just really wanted to do art, except when I was taking those photographs of people I would make the clothes that I would photograph them in so I could control the whole thing.

I always say I make pictures rather than take pictures.

Making a movie and not directing the little moments is like drinking a soda and leaving the little slurp puddle for someone else.

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

There's a good many pictures I'd like to make; we'll see how many I'll be allowed to make.

I always try hard to arrange all media in a way so that it expresses what I want - this is not limited to one medium alone and varies from case to case.

With a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with 'The American' and 'Control' I managed to do that.

What I find most satisfying about photography is the way in which it allows me to document 'reality' while at the same time creating my own version thereof; in other words, the reality I present is a reality based upon what I choose to include in the frame and what I choose to leave out.

I treat the camera like a person - I gaze into it. Photos are a flat thing, and you need to put life into them.

I think photography is closest to writing, not painting. It's closest to writing because you are using this machine to convey an idea. The image shouldn't need a caption; it should already convey an idea.

Photography, for me, is something I can control fully. It's wholly my own expressions.

The great thing about working in comics is that visually, you're the sole voice. You have to figure out the staging, the lighting, the composition, the character emotions, the action. You get a script, but you're trying to work it out in individual panels. It's a terrific exercise in creative thinking and creative problem-solving.

To catch a piece of life on camera and make it come alive, add layers to it and deliver a product that is wholesome is really exciting to me.

Isn't composing music akin to film direction?

I always want everything I do to be somewhat cinematic. I don't want to be the rapper that'll just post up and shoot a video anywhere with no real meaning to it.

Paintings don't just happen. I am not a proponent of the idea of an artist as someone who kind of magically makes things and has no real control or isn't willfully producing a certain kind of thing. It is labor-intensive, and it is research-intensive. You are making one decision after another, trying to get at something you think is important.

I'm very lucky that I'm not a photographer for hire - people hire me for me. I go into every commercial work with an art focus, with that lens; every brand I've worked for just lets me do whatever I want to do. I have full creative freedom.

I think the success of any movie is dependent upon it being a singular vision.

I do not want to make art and then try to dictate how people use it, or how people interact with it.

The films I love are very precise, and every shot means something; every shot should convey something new.

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world.

All photographs are self-portraits.