Roy DeCarava Quotes

#1. It's the not the subject that interests me as much as my perception of the subject.

Roy DeCarava

#2. Artists are a very important part of our society because they make a great contribution to our values. The artist creates a value system that we all grow up on, whether we know it or not.

Roy DeCarava

#3. I try to photograph things that are near to me because I work best among things I know. I'm not concerned with startling anyone or discovering new forms; formal qualities are only tools to help state my message.

Roy DeCarava

#4. I don't really think that the technique really determines the veracity of the image. It's what the image does to the viewer that determines whether it's right or wrong.

Roy DeCarava

#5. There were no black images of dignity, no images of beautiful black people. There was this big hole. I tried to fill it.

Roy DeCarava

#6. Seeing your work on the wall is like the ultimate thing that can happen.

Roy DeCarava

#7. The artist is a kind of a seer and by nature he is optimistic because he believes in the future.

Roy DeCarava

#8. My photographs are subjective and personal-they'r e intended to be accessible, to relate to people's lives ... People-their well-being and survival-are the crux of what's important to me.

Roy DeCarava

#9. But if it's true it's beautiful. Truth is beautiful. And so my whole work is about what amounts to a reverence for life itself.

Roy DeCarava

#10. You should be able to look at me and see my work. You should be able to look at my work and see me.

Roy DeCarava

#11. The artist creates the material that we look back upon as part of history.

Roy DeCarava

#12. A photograph is a photograph, a picture, an image, an illusion complete within itself, depending neither on words, reproductive processes or anything else for its life, its reason for being.

Roy DeCarava

#13. For me, photography must be visual, rather than intellectual and ideological.

Roy DeCarava