Tina Modotti Quotes

I cannot, as you [Edward Weston] once proposed to me - solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art ... in my case, life is always struggling to predominate and art naturally suffers.

I just feel impotent - I don't know which way to start or turn. You know what they say about a prophet in one's own country - well - in a way it works for me too: you see - this might be called my home town - well of all the old friends and acquaintances not one takes me seriously as a photographer - not one has asked me to show my work ... (On returning to San Francisco)

The majority of photographers still seek artistic effects, imitating other mediums of graphic expression. The result is a hybrid product that does not succeed in giving their work the most valuable characteristic it should have, - photographic quality.

I never would have believed that I would be so strong and not lose my head in a situation where the wind of collective insanity is blowing.

I don't believe in marriage. I think at worst it's a hostile political act, a way for small-minded men to keep women in the house and out of the way, wrapped up in the guise of tradition and conservative religious nonsense. At best, it's a happy delusion - these two people who truly love each other and have no idea how truly miserable they're about to make each other. But, but, when two people know that, and they decide with eyes wide open to face each other and get married anyway, then I don't think it's conservative or delusional. I think it's radical and courageous and very romantic.

Always, when the words art and artistic are applied to my photographic work, I am disagreeably affected. This is due, surely, to the bad use and abuse made of those terms. I consider myself a photographer, nothing more. If my photographs differ from that which is usually done in this field, it is precisely because I try to produce not art but honest photographs, without distortions or manipulations.

Photography, precisely because it can only be produced in the present and because it is based on what exists objectively before the camera, takes its place as the most satisfactory medium for registering objective life in all its aspects, and from this comes its documental value. If to this is added sensibility and understanding and, above all, a clear orientation as to the place it should have in the field of historical development, I believe that the result is something worthy of a place in social production, to which we should all contribute.

I cannot solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art.