The fact is that rela­tively few pho­to­graph­ers ever mas­ter their medi­um. Ins­tead they allow the medi­um to mas­ter them and go on an end­less squir­rel cage cha­se from new lens to new paper to new deve­lo­per to new gad­get, never stay­ing with one pie­ce of equip­ment long enough to learn its full capa­ci­ties, beco­ming lost in a maze of tech­ni­cal infor­ma­ti­on that is of litt­le or no use sin­ce they don’t know what to do with it.
Edward Wes­t­on (1886 – 1958)

Within every man and woman a secret is hid­den, and as a pho­to­grapher it is my task to reve­al it if I can. The reve­la­ti­on, if it comes at all, will come in a small frac­tion of a second with an uncon­scious ges­tu­re, a gleam of the eye, a brief lif­ting of the mask that all humans wear to con­ce­al their inner­most sel­ves from the world. In that flee­ting inter­val of oppor­tu­ni­ty the pho­to­grapher must act or lose his pri­ze.

Yous­uf Karsh (1908–2002)