David Hurn (born 21 July 1934) is a British documentary photographer and member of Magnum Photos.
In previous ages the word 'art' was used to cover all forms of human skill. The Greeks believed that these skills were given by the gods to man for the purpose of improving the condition of life. In a real sense, photography has fulfilled the Greek ideal of art; it should not only improve the photographer, but also improve the world.
My advice is: learn from the best or teach yourself. And do not bother at all if you do not have an exaggerated sense of curiosity.
There are many forms of photography. I consider myself simply a recorder of that which I find of interest around me. I personally have no desire to create or stage direct ideas.
The fundamental issue is one of emphasis: you are not a photographer because you are interested in photography. . . The reason is that photography is only a tool, a vehicle, for expressing or transmitting a passion in something else. It is not the end result.
These are the two basic controls at the photographer's command--positi on and timing--all others are extensions, peripheral ones, compared to them
I think of myself as a reportage photographer. I like the word. It implies a personal account of an observed event with connotations of subjectivity but honesty. It is eye-witness photography.
It is the purpose of life that each of us strives to become actually what he or she is potentially. Each photographer, then, should be obsessed with stretching towards that goal through an understanding of others and the world we inhabit. When that happens, the results, like photographs, are really the expressions of the life of the maker.
. . . one day I was speculating on how I would like to look back on life and I decided I wanted to feel that I was a photographer rather than a teacher. As simple as that.
You are not a photographer because you are interested in photography.
I'm a photographer, obviously. My chosen tool for understanding life, and communicating the results of this search to others, is the camera.
This idea fascinates me. The idea that a few seconds of watching a photographer in action can tell you hisher status in the medium. And it's true. If you watch a photographer of merit working an event heshe does not look like an amateur.
The most important piece of equipment after the camera is a good pair of shoes.
I never claim my photographs reveal some definitive truth. I claim that this is what I saw and felt about the subject at the time the pictures were made. That's all that any photographer can claim. I do not know any great photographer who would presume otherwise.
Life as it unfolds in front of the camera is full of so much complexity, wonder and surprise that I find it unnecessary to create new realities. There is more pleasure, for me, in things as-they-are.
The destination of the photograph is to reveal what something or somebody looked like, under a particular set of conditions, at a particular moment in time, and to transmit the results to others.
For me photography is an excuse to be nosy about things I want to know about.
Learn from the best; the second raters have nothing to offer.