Quotes by
Bernard Plossu

Nothing important is happening but that is precisely because a great photo doesn't necessarily have to show something important, it can be ordinary, anodyne.

My camera is like the arrow. Do I reach the target, or does the target reach me, or is it all the same thing? It’s all very emotional, and I think very different from using a big view camera and a tripod, which is much more planned and careful.

Photography is an instinct; a picture is the record or the evidence of a thousandth of a second of delirium. You have to have a little madness for that magic moment that really is the subject of a strong photograph.

I just don’t want photography to be decoration. The worst thing to do with photography is to say it looks like a painting. Photography is close to drawing, sketching, and it’s very close to writing. It’s a way of taking notes. A writer is closer to a photographer than a painter. I’m convinced just by the way I write notes that it’s a similar discipline. When you write, the time it takes for the idea to come to the pen and paper is very similar to the time it takes to put the image in the camera with your eye.

How can you make a job with a state of mind, with a piece of your soul? Many times I meet people, I ask what you do and they answer me, I’m an artist. I find that embarrassing. You cannot say about yourself you are an artist or a spiritual person, maybe others can feel it in you, but don’t try to self-define yourself as such. It’s like saying artists are members of some special social class. What artists from all times always have been looking for is independence, so why suddenly want to belong to the artist community? I think creation is a guide to freedom. I would certainly never dare say of myself I’m this or that specifically. The only thing I can say is that I’m trying to understand the world through photography. I’m just one more photographer doing a testimony of my times.

The accident is needed in photography. It does not matter whether a picture is in focus or a blur. It is its soul that matters, not its sharpness.

Photography should be about always shaking yourself up. Who am I? Do I grow up or not?

To take photographs one has to be like a monk, to achieve a maximum degree of concentration, like with meditation, and at the same time possess a delirious disposition. This is why I say that photographing is a meeting place for that sort of delirium and absolute peace. Photography is made up of those two moments. They combine to create dynamite.