Dawoud Bey Quotes

#1. Improvisational things about picture-making ... learned from working with the small camera early on have served me well in being able to think quickly when making [portraits].

Dawoud Bey

#2. Black people have been killed for directing their gaze at the wrong person. I want my subjects to reclaim their right to look, to see, to be seen.

Dawoud Bey

#3. If done well, I believe the photographic representation of the human subject has the potential to be more revealing than what is revealed by the eye alone, since the human glance is usually a momentary one.

Dawoud Bey

#4. While I have devised various formal strategies for articulating [my] concerns, I think fundamentally the work is driven by a basic curiosity. I seek to find out things about people by making photographs of them.

Dawoud Bey

#5. People say don't stare. Through the photos, not only do I stare, but I allow viewers to stare at the subject, to see things that they cannot see with a casual glance.

Dawoud Bey

#6. I always wanted my photographs to challenge the status quo, to contest the kinds of images that existed in popular culture ...

Dawoud Bey