Amy Arbus Quotes & Sayings

When I ask to photograph someone, it is because I love the way they look and I think I make that clear. I'm paying them a tremendous compliment. What I'm saying is, I want to take you home with me and look at you for the rest of my life. — Amy Arbus

It's entirely ridiculous and hopeless to try to compete with somebody who made such a huge contribution to photography ... I knew when I went into photography that I would be compared to my mother. I thought to myself, what can I do about that? — Amy Arbus

My mother's work has been an enormous influence on me, but not literally. By that I mean, my photographs don't look like hers. That makes it difficult to compare them. What they do share is an emotional intensity. — Amy Arbus

Richard Avedon taught me that if you go into a photo session and come out with what you had hoped for, it's a failure. You need to be surprised if you want it to be magical. — Amy Arbus