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Bill Jay Quotes

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Famous Bill Jay Quotes

“If there is a single factor which separates the best photographers from the wannabes it is the quantity of images which they produce. They seem to be forever shooting. I have watched many of them as they take picture after picture even when they are not photographing. [...] Often these intimate images do not look as though they were taken by the same photographer. And that is their fascination and charm.”

“I seem to walk in the world as two people. The normal everyday-me is as preoccupied, unobservant and oblivious to visual clues as I ever was. Then there is the photographer-me, the one who has a camera in hand and a specific project in mind, and then the world suddenly jumps to life with potential pictures, as if a switch had been thrown in my brain and a different person is looking out of the same eyes.”

“This is life. It is everywhere, and it is here for the taking. I am alive and I know this, now, in a more profound way than when I am doing anything else. These sights are ephemeral, fleeting treasures that have been offered to me and to me alone. No other person in the history of the world, anywhere in all of time and space, has been granted this gift to be here in my place. And I am privileged, through the camera, to take this moment away with me. That is why I photograph.”

“Photography is inextricably linked with life; the photographer is not invisibly behind the camera but projecting a life-attitude through the lens to create an interference pattern with the image. Who he is, what he believes, not only becomes important to know intellectually, but also becomes revealed emotionally and visibly through a body of work.”

“'Ornithologists concluded that migratory birds take hundreds of naps as they fly; they also practice unilateral eye closure, in which one eye closes, thereby permitting half the brain to sleep.' Is this what happens when photographers close one eye to look through a viewfinder? If so, they might be operating with only half a brain. Perhaps that explains.”

“...photographers who carry 60 pounds of equipment up a hill to photograph a view are not suffering enough, although their whining causes enough suffering among their listeners. No, if they really expect us to respect their search for enlightenment and artistic expression, in [the] future they will drag the equipment up the hill by their genitals and take the view with a tripod leg stuck through their foot.”

“Be gentle and tolerant. Intimacy will grow, but will take time and cannot be rushed. If all goes well, soon you will become more familiar with each other, and handling will forge awkward fumbling and fondling into more satisfying and productive caresses and eventually into a comfortable working partnership. At this stage you will be ready to accompany your new camera into the world.”