"I never stopped photographing. There were a couple of years when I didn't have a darkroom, but that didn't stop me from photographing"
About this Quote
Cunningham’s line has the blunt confidence of someone refusing the romance of “the muse.” No darkroom? Fine. The work continues. The first sentence is a stake in the ground: a life defined less by outputs than by appetite, by the daily compulsion to look. Then she undercuts any temptation to mythologize the craft as dependent on gear or perfect conditions. The darkroom - historically the photographer’s sanctum, the place where images become proofs - is framed as a convenience, not a prerequisite.
That’s the subtext: photography isn’t an identity you put on when the infrastructure is in place; it’s a habit of mind. Cunningham’s insistence quietly rebukes a certain kind of artistic self-excuse. She’s also smuggling in a feminist clarity. As a woman working through eras when money, space, and institutional support were unevenly distributed, the line reads like a hard-won philosophy: if you wait for ideal circumstances, you’ll be waiting forever, and the waiting is the point of control.
Context sharpens it. Cunningham came up when photography was still fighting for legitimacy as art, and she helped define modernist seeing with portraits, botanicals, and nudes that are precise without being precious. Her statement deflates fetishism of process while reaffirming discipline. The camera becomes less a device than a permission slip: to keep recording, to keep training the eye, even when the final print has to wait. That patience is its own form of authorship.
That’s the subtext: photography isn’t an identity you put on when the infrastructure is in place; it’s a habit of mind. Cunningham’s insistence quietly rebukes a certain kind of artistic self-excuse. She’s also smuggling in a feminist clarity. As a woman working through eras when money, space, and institutional support were unevenly distributed, the line reads like a hard-won philosophy: if you wait for ideal circumstances, you’ll be waiting forever, and the waiting is the point of control.
Context sharpens it. Cunningham came up when photography was still fighting for legitimacy as art, and she helped define modernist seeing with portraits, botanicals, and nudes that are precise without being precious. Her statement deflates fetishism of process while reaffirming discipline. The camera becomes less a device than a permission slip: to keep recording, to keep training the eye, even when the final print has to wait. That patience is its own form of authorship.
Quote Details
| Topic | Never Give Up |
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