Photographers usually want to photograph facts and things. But I'm interested in the nature of the thing itself. A photograph of someone sleeping tells me nothing about their dream state; a photograph of a corpse tells me nothing about the nature of death. My work is about my life as an event, and I find myself to be very temporal, transient.
More Quotes by Duane Michals
Trust that little voice in your head that says 'Wouldn't it be interesting if...'; And then do it.
Art has to address eternal issues.
Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.
Even in the deepest love relationship - when lovers say 'I love you' to each other - we don't really know what we're saying, because language isn't equal to the complexity of human emotions.
I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.
I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.