David Douglas Duncan Quotes

It's very simple ... this banging around with a camera and typewriter as a business is just one helluva lot of fun.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and knowing nothing about Picasso, I had the audacity to knock on his door, became his friend, and took thousands of photographs, of him, his studios, his life and his friends.

Gandhi was a strange guy. There was this simplistic manner; but nobody knows what it cost to provide the simple life of Mohandas Gandhi. Nobody. He traveled on a train by himself.

My objective always is to stay as close as possible and shoot the pictures as if through the eyes of the infantryman, the Marine, or the pilot. I wanted to give the reader something of the visual perspective and feeling of the guy under fire, his apprehensions and sufferings, his tensions and releases, his behavior in the presence of threatening death.

There's nobody between you and the print. Nobody. It's you and the subject and the final print. And if you get it published that way, you've said it.

The major economies are not American anymore. They are Asian and South American.

My only rule: I never photographed the face of the dead, ever, out of respect for the families.

With Germany conquered, the Kremlin checkmated, Japan converted, it became easier - safer - to peek around looking for someone to fear ... and maybe do something about. Ideally, somebody far away, from a country about which almost nothing was known.

War is the easiest photography in the business. Just get close, be lucky, know how your camera works. There are subjects everywhere. Everyplace you go, there is something to photograph in a war, like being in the middle of a hurricane or a train crash or an earthquake. You can't miss it.

Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam were perfect for Lyndon Johnson: 220 million against 18 million, water buffalo and all. No risk, really.

Photographer's advice: Stand in the right place.

I never felt in competition with anybody in war photography. You're lucky to get your ass in and out again. It's as simple as that. It's the easiest photography in the world to shoot somebody who's been shot up. It doesn't take a genius. That's easy. The only thing you need to know is your photography. Get in and if you're lucky get out. And get as close as you can get.

War is in the eyes.

The Marines in Korea never feared 'friendly fire' or artillery coming from the South Koreans - from their allies - like they did later in Vietnam, fighting with the South Vietnamese. The Koreans could be trusted.

Today, Japan is one of the few countries in the world where one hears laughter everywhere.