The Unconcerned Photographer

Book excerpt: Charles Harbutt (1935-2015) was a master photographer and educator. His clear, pointed words from a 1970 lecture- published here in its entirety for the first time-will resonate with and challenge audiences considering the medium today: "Photography is not art. It is something totally new in human experience, something humans have not been able to do until the last century or so. Like flying. Or blowing up the whole world (I hope we survive our inventive little minds). The basic impulse of the photographer is diametrically opposed to the basic impulse of the artist, no matter what the artist's medium. The artist is trying to bring into existence something (even if only a concept) that never existed before. The photographer is trying to preserve, with the lens and especially the shutter, something in reality that will cease to exist in just that way in the next moment, or hour, or day.-Charles Harbutt