Pfahl Quotes & Sayings

I became wary of simple interpretations that assumed fixed and final meanings. — John Pfahl

As Estelle Jussim wrote, it is almost impossible for a single photograph to state both the problem and the solution. — John Pfahl

We're collectively living through 1500, when it's easier to see what's broken than what will replace it. — Clay Shirky

People think the camera steals their soul. Places, I am convinced, are affected in the opposite direction. The more they are photographed (or drawn and painted) the more soul they seem to accumulate. — John Pfahl

It would have been possible to structure my photographs in such a way that no indicators of the present were discernible. However, I wanted to incorporate into the project as a whole the jostling of time-frames I would feel as I set up my tripod on various rocky promontories. — John Pfahl

I think it is very difficult to legislate for morality. — Ben Elton

While making my picture window photographs, I came to think that every room was like a gigantic camera forever pointed at the same view. — John Pfahl

It is not without trepidation that I have appropriated the codes of the Sublime and the Picturesque in my work. After all, serious photographers have spent most of this century trying to expunge such extravagances from their art. The tradition lives on, mostly in calendars and picture postcards. I was challenged to rework and revitalize that which had been so roundly denigrated. — John Pfahl

Somehow I felt that if Fox Talbot had had more time and more drawing talent, he would have filled in the interval between his two drawings and made a complete panorama. Now, 163 years later, I was able to use his great invention to elaborate on his youthful dream of capturing and fixing the fleeting image. In doing so, I may also have added another little bit to the soul of this extraordinary place. — John Pfahl

I have been using the art of photography to research the ways in which the pictorial strategies of the Nineteenth Century color the way in which the American landscape is apprehended by today's viewers. — John Pfahl

In 2008, when the real estate market blew up, it principally hurt older people who saw the value of their houses go down, along with their pension plans. — Juan Williams

NOW the final copper light of afternoon fades; now the street beyond the low maples and the low signboard is prepared and empty, framed by the study window like a stage. — William Faulkner

I often wondered why I was attracted to certain landscapes and not others and why my photographs (and depictions by other artists) looked the way they did, Archetypes imprinted on my mind started me on a search ... — John Pfahl

I want to make photographs whose very ambiguity provokes thought, rather than cuts it off prematurely. I want to make pictures that work on a more mysterious level, that approach the truth by a more circuitous route. — John Pfahl

Strangers with puzzled looks were amazingly cooperative in letting me into their rooms with my photographic gear. They let me take down the curtains, wash the windows, and rearrange the furniture. Often, too, they expressed their desire to share their view with others, as if it were a non-depletable treasure. I liked the idea that my photographic vantage points were not solely determined by myself. They were predetermined by others, sometimes years earlier, and patiently waited for me to discover them. — John Pfahl

At her door, Jenna stopped. "Soph, I really am
"
"Jenna, if you say sorry one more time, I'm going to punch you in your tiny pink head. — Rachel Hawkins

I feel that God wants me to coach; otherwise, he wouldn't have put the desire in me. — Lou Holtz

I don't want to fly the flag for being unhealthy and overweight, but I don't want to fly the flag for being too thin, either. — Martine McCutcheon

Photography, of course, is the perfect medium for the investigation. It can reveal the truth of present day specifics and particularities, while at the same time, by conscious choice of lighting and pictorial structure, suggest the aesthetic legacy of the past. — John Pfahl