Roger Ballen Quotes

Black and white is a very minimalist art form and unlike color photographs does not pretend to mimic the world in a manner similar to the way the human eye might perceive... Black and white is essentially an abstract way to interpret and transform what one might refer to as reality.

Nothing is staged. And nothing is already there. Everything is transformed through the camera.

The pictures are of a psychological culture, a Jungian culture, if you will. It emanates from my own psyche... It's a hard place to get to, honestly. It has taken me many years to get to that place and to define it visually.

It is my belief that the most challenging photographs are those that create a tension between what we refer to as the real and the imaginative.

Life on the planet and in our galaxy is so complex, I don't hope to have any substantial effect in it, but if I can touch a few people deep in their psyche, by making my personal subjective journey concrete for others, then I am very happy.

Black and White is essentially an abstract way to interpret and transform what one might refer to as reality. My purpose in taking photographs over the past forty years has ultimately been about defining myself. It has been fundamentally a psychological and existential journey.

[Photography] tells you that every second in time is different from every other second. You want people to understand that the image in front of them has something to do with the truth, and it can never be repeated.

In the end, I believe that the most important influence on my aesthetic has been the photographs I have taken.

I never prepare a speech. I never think when I give a speech, except for "don't embarrass yourself or others," meaning "remember the names of the people you have to thank."

I never think about a photo before I start it. I try to let my mind relax, and then when I get there I do it.

My best Pictures are the ones I don’t understand.

When you go searching, you never know what you will find.

If an artist is one who spends his life trying to define his being, I guess I would have to call myself an artist.

[My] goal as an artist is to create increasingly complex images with greater and greater clarity of form and intensity of vision.