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Quote by Sam Abell

“I was giving a lecture and I said, that's enough about The Photographic Life, meaning my biography, now let's talk about the life of a photograph. And in that one instant I got the title for a potential next book.”

Quote by Sam Abell

Author

Sam Abell is a renowned American photographer, born on February 19, 1945. His photography focuses on natural landscapes and humanistic documentation, characterized by a unique style and widespread acclaim. more

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“There are a lot of ways to talk about the life of a photograph. You can talk about the afterlife of a photograph, and in the end I talk about that, with the Richard Prince picture. But mainly, what I dedicated the book to being about was how photographs begin their life, and where they begin it. And they begin it with the photographer's imagination and instinct and experience.”

Way Book Ends Imagination Instinct Photographer Photograph Dedicated Afterlife

Author:Sam Abell

“It's a little bit like talking about the life of writing. The life of writing may be about many things, but it always begins with the writer. With the kernel of an idea, or a character, or an idea or a theme, or even an outcome. But for documentary photographers, photographs begin at that intersection of the real world and the imaginative inner world.”

World Writing May Littles Ideas Real Character Bits Talking Little Bit Photographer Photograph Outcomes Theme Real World Documentaries Imaginative Inner World Intersections Kernel

Author:Sam Abell

“The longer we lived with it the more we wanted something less about process and more about life.”

Author:Sam Abell

“I started teaching in '76 and I'd been a photographer at the Geographic for six years. But prior to being at the Geographic I was a teacher. Plus my parents were teachers and my brother and my grandparents. So it was the culture of our family to think about teaching, to talk about teaching, to talk about teachers.”

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“Teaching has never been far from my life. It's the most natural thing I do. Apparently, as I said, I cannot not do it.”

Said Natural Teaching Natural Things

Author:Sam Abell

“Aboriginal Australia is a tough place to work, rough and tough.”

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Author:Sam Abell

“There's a great quote about Virginia Woolf, she had the same spiritual stake in her diaries as she had in her writing.”

Writing Spiritual Stakes Diaries Virginia Woolf

Author:Sam Abell

“I have this awareness that the more dynamic the situation is, the more on guard I need to be that the dynamic isn't controlling the situation. I found that myself in the Galapagos. For the first time in my life I was around very exotic animals, colorful, beautiful, and immediately present, all around. Birds, turtles, iguanas, seals. I was being seduced by their exoticism, I was taking pictures.The pictures weren't well lit, there was no moment in play, there was no depth to the pictures. I was just gawking with my camera at something I'd never seen before.”

Needs Firsts Wells Play Moments Beautiful Found Animal Situation Awareness Bird First Time Cameras Depth Lit Exotic Seals Colorful Turtles Taking Pictures Iguanas Exotic Animals

Author:Sam Abell

“Typically I see it with photographers who go to a place like India or Nepal, and everything's so colorful and exotic and they think, therefore, a picture's been taken.”

Thinking Taken India Photographer Exotic Colorful Nepal

Author:Sam Abell

“Exotic novelty. My statement to [people] is always, well, set this picture in your home town, is it still an interesting picture? Or is it just exotic? Would I care about this same picture minus its exoticism?”

People Wells Stills Home Care Interesting Towns Statements I Care Novelty Exotic Minus Home Town

Author:Sam Abell