"No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually." — Dorothea Lange

To know ahead of time what you're looking for means you're then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.

I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.

The words that come direct from the people are the greatest... If you substitute one out of your own vocabulary, it disappears before your eyes.