Modotti Tina Quotes & Sayings

I cannot, as you [Edward Weston] once proposed to me - solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art ... in my case, life is always struggling to predominate and art naturally suffers. — Tina Modotti

To know whether photography is or is not an art matters little. What is important is to distinguish between good and bad photography. By good is meant that photography which accepts all the limitations inherent in photographic technique and takes advantage of the possibilities and characteristics the medium offers. By bad photography is mean that which is done, one may say, with a kind of inferiority complex, with no appreciation of what photography itself offers: but on the contrary, recurring to all sorts of imitations. — Tina Modotti

The majority of photographers still seek artistic effects, imitating other mediums of graphic expression. The result is a hybrid product that does not succeed in giving their work the most valuable characteristic it should have, - photographic quality. — Tina Modotti

Here's to the few who forgive what you do, and the fewer who don't even care — Leonard Cohen

I don't believe in marriage. I think at worst it's a hostile political act, a way for small-minded men to keep women in the house and out of the way, wrapped up in the guise of tradition and conservative religious nonsense. At best, it's a happy delusion - these two people who truly love each other and have no idea how truly miserable they're about to make each other. But, but, when two people know that, and they decide with eyes wide open to face each other and get married anyway, then I don't think it's conservative or delusional. I think it's radical and courageous and very romantic. — Tina Modotti

I saw more truth and sensitivity in art than I did in many of the people in this world. — Frederick Lenz

Always, when the words art and artistic are applied to my photographic work, I am disagreeably affected. This is due, surely, to the bad use and abuse made of those terms. I consider myself a photographer, nothing more. If my photographs differ from that which is usually done in this field, it is precisely because I try to produce not art but honest photographs, without distortions or manipulations. — Tina Modotti

I cannot solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art. — Tina Modotti

I never would have believed that I would be so strong and not lose my head in a situation where the wind of collective insanity is blowing. — Tina Modotti

Imaginative writers often project their own monsters and meanings on basic facts. — Christopher Bram

Photography, precisely because it can only be produced in the present and because it is based on what exists objectively before the camera, takes its place as the most satisfactory medium for registering objective life in all its aspects, and from this comes its documental value. If to this is added sensibility and understanding and, above all, a clear orientation as to the place it should have in the field of historical development, I believe that the result is something worthy of a place in social production, to which we should all contribute. — Tina Modotti

Most of Tina Modotti's work that is known to the photography world was done in Mexico in the years 1923 through 1926, when she lived and worked with Edward Weston. — John Szarkowski

I just feel impotent - I don't know which way to start or turn. You know what they say about a prophet in one's own country - well - in a way it works for me too: you see - this might be called my home town - well of all the old friends and acquaintances not one takes me seriously as a photographer - not one has asked me to show my work ... (On returning to San Francisco) — Tina Modotti

A mouse was always depressed because he was afraid of cats. A great wizard took pity on him and turned him into a cat. Then he started to be afraid of dogs, and so the wizard turned him into a dog. Then he began to fear tigers. The wizard, who was very patient, used his powers to turn him into a tiger. Then he was afraid of hunters. Finally, the wizard gave up and turned him back into a mouse, saying: — Paulo Coelho

I know that the materials found on the streets is rich and wonderful, but my experience is that the way I am accustomed to work, slowly planning my composition etc. is not suited for such work. By the time I have the composition or expression right, the picture is gone. I guess I want to do the impossible and therefore I do nothing. — Tina Modotti

Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I have a problem with fashion magazines sometimes - they seem to have these dogmas or uniforms. 'This is the way you must look; this is this season's must-have.' I really resent the phrase 'must-have.' I prefer to decide for myself what I think is beautiful or fashionable. — Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

Pure your gentle name, pure your fragile life,
bees, shadows, fire, snow, silence and foam,
combined with steel and wire and
pollen to make up your firm
and delicate being.
Pablo Neruda's epitaph for Tina Modotti — Pablo Neruda

As a journalist in Providence, I was particularly drawn toward stories about women's issues: I wrote about discrimination, abortion, violence against women. I wrote about women's health, sexism in the media, cultural imagery. I even wrote about women (other women) with eating disorders. And quietly, privately, I starved myself half to death. There you have it: intellectual belief without the correlary of emotional roots; feminist power understood in the mind but not known, somehow, in the body. — Caroline Knapp

I don't want to destroy anything. But I want to know what I can destroy. — Bill Callahan

At bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father. — Sigmund Freud