Jean Painlevé & Dejan Stojanovic

Photo by Jean Painlevé, Hippocampe femelle, 1931 

 I am the shore and the ocean, 

awaiting myself on both sides.

Dejan Stojanovic

Sebastião Salgado & Santosh Kalwar

Photo by Sebastiao Salgado, Aqua Mater 

 

Always be like water. 

Floats in the times of pain

 or dance

like waves 

along the wind

 which touches its surface.

Santosh Kalwar 

Henri Cartier-Bresson & E.E. Cummings

Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Livorno, Italy 1933

I will take the sun in my mouth

and leap into the ripe air

Alive

with closed eyes

to dash against the darkness 

 E. E. Cummings, Poems 1923-1954

Bill Brandt & Hafiz of Shiraz

Photo by Bill Brandt 1952 Perspective of nudes 


I wish
 I could
show you
when you are lonely or in darkness
the astonishing light
of your own being.

Hafiz of Shiraz 

Horst P. Horst & William Faulkner

Photo by Horst P. Horst for Vogue 1930



You
cannot swim
for new horizons
 until
 you have courage to lose sight
of the shore.


William Faulkner 

 

Petecia Le Fawnhawk & Italo Calvino

Photo by Lefawnhawk , Modern Desert Magic




The ideal place for me
 is the one
 in which
 it is most natural
 to live
 as a foreigner.


Italo Calvino
The uses of literature

Alex Phénix & Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Photo by Alex Phénix, Antik, autoportrait of the artist, 2020



A woman
must be able to stand in the face of power,
because ultimately
some part of that power
will become
hers.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Women who run with the wolves

Thanks to the artist Alex Phénix
Instagram account: phenixthecat