Eve Arnold Quotes

If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.

In every case the story opens with a perfect state of Yin. Faust is perfect in knowledge; Job is perfect in goodness and prosperity; Adam and Eve are perfect in innocence and ease; the Virgins— Gretchen, Danae and the rest— are perfect in purity and beauty. In the astronomer’s universe the Sun, a perfect orb, travels on its course intact and whole. When Yin is thus complete, it is ready to pass over into Yang.

It doesn’t matter if you use a box camera or a Leica, the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing. What I have tried to do is involve the people I was photographing. To have them realize without saying so, that it was up to them to give me whatever they wanted to give me . . . if they were willing to give, I was willing to photograph.

Old Testament authors often used paronomasia (or wordplay), and the expression “the LORD God formed the man [ʾādām] from the dust of the ground [ʾădāmâ]” emphasizes humanity’s relationship to the land (Gn 2:7). There is grammatical evidence for reading “Adam” as a personal name for the first time in Genesis 4:25–26 (or perhaps 5:1–2). Likewise, the names “Eve” and “Eden” have symbolic significance for our narrator. “Eve” (ḥawwâ) is a wordplay on the verb for “live,” and therefore explains the man’s comment that she would “become the mother of all the living” (Gn 3:20). The garden’s name “Eden” should be associated with the Hebrew word “pleasure” or “delight.” It is also likely that other names in the Genesis narrative, such as Cain and Abel, have symbolic significance.