I wanted to photograph this subject
because the signs shrieking blatancy literally cried out for a visual
record. To my mind the faded, yellowing paper and the red paint were not
particularly paintable. In black and white the signs shouted, clamored
for attention, in visual anarchy. At the same time, the shrewd business
sense which plastered them solid over the entire window area produced,
as it were by chance, an esthetic by-product: the whole has homogeneity
and variety of texture, simultaneously, which give the picture interest.
Berenice Abbott, New Guide to Better Photography,
1953
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