I have to dig this quote out from a interview with Norman Alley written back in 1954 in light of some inflated egos and chest beating over in the NPPA group. Funny that Alley was often cited by TV photogs who started their careers in the 50s and 60s as why they became news photogs, that he often filmed for Ed Murrow and occasionally placed well in various NPPA photography contests during his career despite his apparent lack of an ego…

While he has photographed some of the most dramatic pictures of the twentieth century, Alley likes to think of himself as a reporter who uses a camera instead of a pencil. He leaves the artistic and scientific approaches to cinematography to those who have the time, and the inclination, to be arty and scientific.

“I know little about the chemistry of photography, never studied composition, and never read a manual on lighting,” he explains. “My aim is simply to be at the right place at the right time, focus my camera and press the button. I never let the mechanics of my camera bother me, because I don’t want anything to interfere with my getting a clear, simple picture.”

And as a housekeeping note on this site, I have disabled commenting on the site itself. Too many spammers were attempting to post a couple thousand comments about pills and porn to the point it was causing issues with the database driving this site. However you are welcome to comment on the Facebook page for this site. I installed Facebook commenting on posts here now. Hopefully that’ll help with the spam issues.