Time & Perspective Quote by David Hockney

There is a quiet provocation in Hockney admitting it took him "about 20 years" to get from using cameras to understanding what he was doing with them. In an art world that rewards instant statements and tidy artist narratives, he’s describing the opposite: a long, almost stubborn apprenticeship to a tool most people treat as automatic. The phrase "played with" is doing a lot of work. It frames photography not as a solemn medium with rules, but as a toy you learn by handling, failing, and trying again - which is exactly how serious artists actually develop, even if they rarely say so.

The subtext is that photography isn’t neutral. "Then think about what it was that was going on" hints at a shift from technique to philosophy: cameras don’t just record reality; they edit it, compress time, fix perspective, and quietly dictate what counts as a "view". Coming from Hockney - a painter famous for interrogating how we see, and later for using photocollage and digital tools - this reads like a statement of method. He’s telling you that the camera is not a rival to painting but a lens (literally and culturally) that can be studied, questioned, and repurposed.

Context matters: Hockney’s career tracks the 20th century’s fight over images, from analog photography to mass reproduction to screens. His patience is a rebuttal to the idea that new tech instantly makes new art; what makes it art is the slow moment when play turns into inquiry.