A virulent, aggressive minority has decided that Americans don't know themselves what it is they should see, and need to be protected by people who are wiser than they are, even if they are only a tiny sliver of the population.
Jock Sturges

All my life I've taken photographs of people who are completely at peace being what they were in the situations I photographed them in.
Jock Sturges

Any artist that's involved in their work is inevitably going to have a focus in what they do.
Jock Sturges

As soon as you forbid something, you make it extraordinarily appealing. You also bring shame in as a phenomenon.
Jock Sturges

Before, I'd photograph anything. I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body.
Jock Sturges

But empirically I've come to understand that my photographs really don't do any harm.
Jock Sturges

But the truth is that Homo sapiens is a sensual species. I think all species are, to one degree or another.
Jock Sturges

Different members of different cultures will think that some things are beautiful.
Jock Sturges

Every child is going to grow up. You can see it happen in the books: They get older and older and belong to themselves to a greater and greater extent.
Jock Sturges

I am fascinated by the human body and all its evolutions.
Jock Sturges

I became good at defending myself, but as far as I was concerned, that was a transient skill.
Jock Sturges

I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body. Now, I recognize that there are certain postures and angles that make people see red, which are evidence of original sin or something, and I avoid that.
Jock Sturges

I don't photograph any two people who are remotely the same.
Jock Sturges

I found myself serving a sentence of public denial from the very second the raid on my apartment happened.
Jock Sturges

I just yesterday returned from a trip where I photographed a woman with two children whom I photographed first when she was the age of the older of the two children.
Jock Sturges

I know the families that I photograph extremely well, and I've known them for a very long time.
Jock Sturges

I will always admit immediately to what's obvious, which is that Homo sapiens is inherently erotic or inherently sensual from birth.
Jock Sturges

I'd rather get back to making art than talk about it.
Jock Sturges

I'm an artist that's attracted to a specific way of seeing and a way of being.
Jock Sturges

I'm guilty of extraordinary naivete, I suppose. But it's a naivete that I really don't want to abandon, not even now.
Jock Sturges