LensWork #83 (The Bill Jay's Best of EndNotes issue)

So I ask you, again, what evidence exists that arts students become “better” human beings? Any one?

What I want to know — and I think this is very important because it is at the heart of almost all art education in this country — is there any empirical, verifiable evidence that art education creates “better” human beings or “improves” our culture? If not, then this accepted value of art constitutes merely a cultural belief system and the art-is-g

In the unlikely event that I would ever be invited to address the graduates, I would give the shortest speech on record: Dear Graduates, Find something you love to do. Get good at it. Hope, but don’t expect, others will appreciate it. Then, with luck, you might be able to make a living at it.

These sights are ephemeral, fleeting treasures that have been offered to me and to me alone. No other person in the history of the world, anywhere in all of time and space, has been granted this gift to be here in my place. And I am privileged, through the camera, to take this moment away with me. That is why I photograph.”

• Words of wisdom for every photographer: “Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.” So said Goethe.

poetry and photography are similar in that more people do it than appreciate it. Good point.

At a family dinner, the cook cut off the ends of the ham before putting it in the oven. “Why did you do that?,” asked a guest. “I always have, because my mother always did it,” said the cook, “Go ask her.” The mother answered, “I cut off the ends because my mother did, so go ask her.” The grandmother answered, “I cut off the ends because I did not

As Woody Allen remarked, “We stand today at a crossroads: one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.”

the words of Groucho Marx: “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”

” Unfortunately, it may be that war photography of any real power is already dead. In the past few wars in which the USA was involved, photographers were not allowed access to the conflict, but became the mere transmitters of military propaganda. In a way, this is proof of photography’s potency; it must be powerful if the military takes such great