War Photographer Quotes & Sayings

I always feel I had a very lucky life. For example, I sure didn't want to go in the army: when I was drafted in the Korean War, I wanted to go as a photographer. But luckily, they put me in the infantry - luckily because the official photographer was photographing the medal awarding and all the official situations. — Harold Feinstein

I think it is fair to say that all war photographers hide behind their cameras. I hid behind mine for years and years and years. It was a shield ... I think that the photographer in combat has a greater protection than the soldier who has a rifle in his hand. That camera has unbelievable protective power. — Carl Mydans

I like to move as much as possible and look at reflections, weird angles, subjects from airplanes and cranes. I feel sorry for the Jabba the Hut types who can't do this. Once an obese student told me that he wanted to be a war photographer. I said, "Really?" and then I shot him. — Peter Menzel

I became a photographer in order to be a war photographer, and a photographer involved in what I thought were critical social issues. From the very beginning this was my goal. — James Nachtwey

With chemical film, it was possible to alter photographs, but you had to be an expert. That's not true any more. The LA Times fired a photographer at the beginning of the Iraq War for editing two shots together. Photography is crumbling. Certainly it is for the newspapers a bit now, isn't it? There will be painting again, absolutely! — David Hockney

My father had wanted to be a commercial artist. He got as far as being a photographer in the army in World War II, but he was always a Sunday painter. At a certain point, he gave me his oil paints and I messed around with them, having no idea what I was doing. — David Salle

He looked at the cameraman. "Was the photographer your idea? Not getting enough TV time?" "No," replied Calvin. "I've had all of the publicity I need for this lifetime and several more. His name is Bob Jones; he goes by the nickname 'Danger.' I didn't know we were getting him until we were on Domus. There was a combat cameraman doing a show on the new members of the Terran Republic, and the Domans hired him to do a 'real Terran news show' on the war. — Chris Kennedy

I'm not a war photographer. I've always dealt with the consequences of conflict. — Giles Duley

It is a misfortune to be in the presence of a writer, even a failed writer, to be seen by him, be his passing study and remain in his corrupt memory. It is like the insult of a corpse on the road by a war photographer. — Manu Joseph

I hope to stay unemployed as a war photographer till the end of my life. — Robert Capa

Photographer James Nachtwey has spent his professional life in the places people most want to avoid: war zones and refugee camps, the city flattened by an earthquake, the village swallowed by a flood, the farm hollowed out by famine. — Nancy Gibbs

The desire of any war photographer is to be put out of business. — Robert Capa

I used to want to be a war photographer, and I used to want to be a ballerina and a comedian. I used to want to be a writer. I invalidated myself; it's a mistake for me. — Cat Power

I will be remembered when I'm in heaven. People won't remember my name, but they will know the photographer who did that picture of that nurse being kissed by the sailor at the end of World War II. Everybody remembers that. — Alfred Eisenstaedt

Philip Jones Griffith documented the Vietnam War, and through his images that were published in Time Life Magazine, it showed me the horrors of war and at that time, I wanted to be a war photographer, based off his work. — Jamel Shabazz

I sell my first book to Random House, a memoir of my years as a war photographer, for twice my NBC salary. — Deborah Copaken Kogan

One thing that Life and I agreed right from the start was that one war photographer was enough for my family; I was to be a photographer of peace. — Cornell Capa

I used to call myself a war photographer. Now I consider myself as an antiwar photographer. — James Nachtwey

Many people send me letters in England saying, 'I want to be a war photographer,' and I say, go out into the community that you live in. There's wars going on out there; you don't have to go halfway around the world on an airplane where there are bombs and shells. There are social wars that are worthwhile. — Don McCullin

The war photographer's most fervent wish is for unemployment — Robert Capa

Magnum photographers were meant to go out as a crusade ... to places like famine and war and ... I went out and went round the corner to the local supermarket because this to me is the front line. — Martin Parr