Black+White Photography Magazine May 2010 Edizione posteriore

Having long been a huge fan of Eve Arnold, I was delighted to hear of her well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sony World Photography Awards. News of it sent me off to the Magnum website to treat myself to a look back through her work, and it was there that I came across this quote by her: ‘It doesn’t matter if you use a Box Brownie or a Leica, the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing. What I have tried to do is involve the people I was photographing. To have them realise, without saying so, that it was up to them to give me whatever they wanted to give me… if they were willing to give, I was willing to photograph.’ (Magnum in Motion magnumphotos.com) Nothing I have come across encapsulates so concisely the art of portraiture. I now have that quote pinned up on the wall beside my desk as a reminder – not only to remind me how I should go about taking portraits, but to honour one of our greatest photographers in her 98th year