Ray Metzker Quotes

I never wanted to make portraits - to photograph celebrities, beautiful people, beautiful landscapes, beautiful buildings, or people in distressing situations.... I have always been interested in everyman - average, ordinary people in everyday situations.

Photographers are victims of paradox, tracking the impermanent to make it permanent.

What appears in the pictures was the subject's decision, not mine. I took what they presented - delicate moments - unadorned and unglamorous, yet tender and exquisite.

I don't need exotic places to be stimulated. Out of familiarity comes nuance. The more you revisit a subject the more you're like to discover.

I am not an objective reporter. I prefer to go further, to the unstated things of our existence. What I can't understand and grasp seems to lead me.

The collection of photographs is a statement about the relationship of my camera and me.

A lot of my work is about is about events, but I also think a lot of my work is about fragmentation.... You have to break something down in order to have the parts synthesize.

Why one picture stands out among many others is always a mystery. In the beginning the subject is never quite known, but in the course of working something shows up on the film or in the print that speaks to me. I can never predict when this will happen. However, when it does there is an excitement - there is the ecstasy of recognition. And this is one of the things that keeps me going.