“You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery.” — Gordon Parks Quote

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery.

So I went to Chicago in 1940, I think, '41, and the photographs that I made there, aside from fashion, were things that I was trying to express in a social conscious way.

The photographer begins to feel big and bloated and so big he can't walk through one of these doors because he gets a good byline; he gets notices all over the world and so forth; but they're really - the important people are the people he photographs.

I bought my first camera in Seattle, Washington. Only paid about seven dollars and fifty cents for it.

I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand.

I didn't need the insurance. I do it again if my DP tells me it didn't look good in the camera or if the actors didn't hit their marks. But if everything was working why do it again?

I came up in photography, and Dust Bowl-era photography is a lot of the reason that I got behind the camera in the first place.

Frankly, I think I'm marvelous in rehearsal! Then you turn the camera on, and it gets stiff and tight. And then you trudge back to your trailer feeling sad. That's been my experience of film acting.

You play a part, and as soon as a movie is over and the camera stops, you go home and you're not really responsible for what you've done.