Best Photography Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 17

“Not only has photography so thoroughly saturated our visual environment as to make the invention of visual images seem archaic, but it is also clear that photography is too multiple, too useful to other discourses, ever to be wholly contained within traditional definitions of art.”

Art Seems Clear Environment Photography Definitions Invention Traditional Visuals Multiple Discourse Saturated Visual Images

Book:On the Museum's Ruins

Source: On the Museum's Ruins

“For me, photography must be visual, rather than intellectual and ideological.”

Photography Intellectual Visuals Ideological

Author:Roy DeCarava

“There is something beautiful about photography; it allows the self to be reunited with the world.”

World Self Beautiful Photography Something Beautiful Reunited

Author:Luc Delahaye

“I was twenty when I discovered war and photography. I can't say that I wanted to bear witness and change the world. I had no good moral reasons: I just loved adventure, I loved the poetry of war, the poetry of chaos, and I found that there was a kind of grace in weaving between the bullets.”

World Kind I Can War Reason Wanted Found Moral Grace Adventure Bears Photography Twenties Chaos Witness Changing The World Bullets Weaving Good Moral

Author:Luc Delahaye

“The denunciation of suffering by photography has replaced the religious justification of suffering in painting. Denunciation is a function of photojournalism, and in itself that's a step in the right direction.”

Suffering Religious Steps Painting Photography Function Justification Replaced Right Direction Photojournalism Steps In The Right Direction

Author:Luc Delahaye

“Fashion is the opposite of the real, its worst enemy. Fashion photography is subversive; it makes you believe everything is true, whereas this could not be more false. It is the opposite of a mirror, a deformation.”

Believe Real Enemy Worst Fashion Photography Opposites Mirrors Subversive Worst Enemy Fashion Photography

Author:Patrick Demarchelier

“Photography has fooled the world. There's no more convincing fraud. Its images are nothing but the expression of the invisible man working behind the camera. They are not reality, they form part of the language of culture.”

Men World Reality Form Culture Language Behinds Expression Photography Cameras Invisible Fraud Convincing Fooled

Author:Edmundo Desnoes

“...photography can lie as convincingly as literature or painting. The angle, the selected content, the assumed context.”

Lying Literature Painting Photography Angle Selected

Author:Edmundo Desnoes

“The Latin American photographer has the possibility, and the means, for naming the things of our world, for demonstrating that there is another kind of beauty, that the faces of the First World are not the only ones. These Indian, black, plundered white and mestizo faces are the first element defining the demographic content of our photography.”

World Firsts Kind Mean Faces Black White Possibility Elements Photography Photographer Indian Latin Our World Defining Latin America Demographics Demonstrating Latin American

Author:Edmundo Desnoes

“[Photography is a] hair-raising joy ride in a medium that, despite being a mechanical trick, can break down the division between mind and matter like a superhero, or an artist.”

Mind Matter Joy Artist Break Hair Photography Tricks Mediums Despite Division Breaking Down Superhero Mind And Matter Joy Ride

Author:Philip-Lorca diCorcia

“Photography is a foreign language everyone thinks he speaks.”

Thinking Speak Language Photography Foreign Language

Author:Philip-Lorca diCorcia

“Photography... unites the obvious and the unconscious at the level of the limimal - the border between what we see and what we suspect.”

Levels Photography Obvious Borders Unconscious Suspects

Author:Philip-Lorca diCorcia

“In the beginning of my photography I controlled everything: rearranging the room, lighting it, and telling people what to do and where to put their hands. By the last project, I was basically totally at the mercy of serendipity.”

People Hands Lasts Rooms Projects Photography Mercy Controlled Lighting Serendipity Rearranging

Author:Philip-Lorca diCorcia

“There's a reductiveness to photography, of course - in the framing of reality and the exclusion of chunks of it (the rest of the world, in fact). It's almost as if the act of photography bears some relationship to how we consciously manage the uncontrollable set of possibilities that exist in life.”

Ifs World Facts Reality Courses Possibility Bears Photography Manage Exclusion Chunks Uncontrollable Framing

Author:Philip-Lorca diCorcia

“Photography works hand in glove with image and memory and therefore possesses their notable epidemic power.”

Hands Memories Photography Notable Gloves Epidemics

Book:Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz

Source: Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz

“It's good to be around people who see [photography] as a reasonable enterprise when everyone in the neighborhood may think it's ridiculous. (On the benefit of teaching photography)”

People Thinking May Teaching Benefits Photography Ridiculous Reasonable Enterprise Neighborhood

Author:John Divola

“We have a few things in common - smoking, drinking, and women. Photography just gets us out of the house. (To photographer Juergen Teller)”

House Common Photography Drinking Photographer Smoking

Author:William Eggleston

“There are religions in which the representation of the world is banned as an usurpation of the power of a God, creator of all things. It is very possible that photography is a trick of the devil and each shot is a sin.”

World Sin Photography Devil Shots All Things Creator Tricks Representation Banned Usurpation

Author:Joan Fontcuberta

“Photography... has lived under the tyranny of its subject matter: the object has exercised an almost total domination.”

Matter Subjects Objects Photography Tyranny Domination Subject Matter

Author:Joan Fontcuberta

“Every photograph is a fiction with pretensions to truth. Despite everything that we have been inculcated, all that we believe, photography always lies; it lies instinctively, lies because its nature does not allow it to do anything else.”

Believe Doe Has Beens Lying Fiction Photography Photograph Despite Pretension

Author:Joan Fontcuberta

“Photography mirrored the [nineteenth century] will towards rigor, towards defining details, the need for miniscule description, the long-distance optics, for technology at the service of truth, for concepts of credibility, of objectivity, the need to archive, for the consolidation of institutions like the museum, in short, towards a need to control memory.”

“I need there to be documentary photographers, because my work is meta-documentary; it is a commentary about the documentary use of photography.”

Needs Use Photography Photographer Documentaries Commentary

Author:Joan Fontcuberta

“What I like so much about photography is precisely the moment that cannot be anticipated; one must be constantly on the alert, ready to acclaim the unexpected.”

Moments Ready Photography Unexpected Acclaim

Author:Martine Franck

“Photography came as a substitute. I was painfully shy and found talking to people difficult; a camera in hand gave me a function, a reason to be somewhere, a witness, but not an actor.”

People Reason Hands Actors Found Difficult Talking Photography Function Cameras Witness Shy Substitutes

Author:Martine Franck

“Photographing is an emotional thing, a graceful thing. Photography allows me to wander with a purpose.”

Purpose Emotional Photography Wander Emotional Things

Book:This is the Day: The March on Washington

Source: This is the Day: The March on Washington

“When I photograph, I am always relating things to one another. Photography shows the connection between things, how they relate.”

Shows Photography Connections Photograph Relate

Book:This is the Day: The March on Washington

Source: This is the Day: The March on Washington

“Before the first press pictures, the ordinary man would visualize only those events that took place near him, on his street or in his village. Photography opened a window. As the reader's outlook expanded, the world began to shrink.”

Men World Firsts Streets Events Reader Photography Ordinary Window Presses Village Outlook Shrinks Ordinary Man

Author:Gisele Freund

“The lens, that allegedly impartial eye, permits all possible distortions of reality... The importance of photography lies not only in the fact that it is a creation, but above all in the fact that it is one of the most effective means of shaping our ideas and influencing our behavior.”

Mean Ideas Facts Reality Eye Lying Influence Creation Behavior Photography Importance Permit Lenses Distortion

Author:Gisele Freund

“Yet it seems so easy to take a photograph! One forgets that, apart from the technical aspects, photography can be a mental creation and the affirmation of a personality. What is marvelous about a photograph is that its possibilities are infinite; there aren't any subjects 'done to death'.”

Done Seems Easy Forget Subjects Creation Possibility Personality Photography Aspect Infinite Photograph Marvelous Affirmation

Author:Gisele Freund

“Photography is the typical means of expression of a society founded on a civilization of technicians, conscious of the aims it has set for itself... Its power of exactly reproducing external reality, a power inherent in its technique, lends it a documentary character and makes it appear as the most faithful and impartial process for the reproduction of social life.”

Mean Character Reality Social Process Expression Civilization Photography Conscious Aim Technique Faithful Inherent Typical Documentaries Social Life Reproduction Technicians Reproducing

Author:Gisele Freund

“Photography has clarity in the same way that language has. A word is precise, but its meaning can change based on the words around it: think tank, tank top.”

Thinking Way Language Photography Clarity Precise Tanks Tank Tops

Author:Jason Fulford

“Celebrities were quick to understand that paparazzi could make icons of them. The more a star is followed and admired, the greater the adulation. So they raised the stakes, sometimes hiding when they don't even need to. Today, stardom is more ephemeral and it's photography that gives them their celebrity status.”

Needs Giving Sometimes Today Stars Greater Photography Raised Hiding Stakes Icons Ephemeral Paparazzi Stardom Adulation Celebrity Status

Author:Ron Galella

“Photography is a great adventure in thinking and looking, a wonderful magic toy that miraculously manages to combine our adult awareness with the fairy-tale world of childhood, a never-ending journey through great and small, through variations and the realm of illusions and appearances, a labyrinthine and specular place of multitudes and simulation.”

“The ultimate role of photography as a contemporary language of visual communication consists of its capacity to slow down our fast and chaotic way of reading images.”

Way Reading Language Roles Communication Photography Capacity Ultimate Contemporary Visuals Slow Down Chaotic

Author:Luigi Ghirri

“Of course [photography] cannot create, nor express all we want to express. But it can be a witness of our passage on earth, like a notebook.”

Want Earth Courses Photography Witness Passages Notebook

Author:Mario Giacomelli

“[My mother] died a few months ago, and when she was dead I kissed her lips. For me it was a beautiful moment. From then on I started living with her, asking her from time to time if she was alright, if she was pleased with me. But these things are far greater than photography, and I probably shouldn't be speaking about them.”

Ifs Moments Beautiful Mother Greater Months Photography Died Asking Lips Alright Mother Died Beautiful Moments

Author:Mario Giacomelli

“I embrace the abstract in photography and exist on a few bits of order extracted from the chaos of reality.”

Reality Order Bits Photography Embrace Chaos Abstract

Author:Ralph Gibson

“I believe that the medium of photography prevails entirely as an act of faith in the souls of those who love and practice it. And so every photograph becomes another subtle variation on the theme of the medium itself.”

Believe Soul I Believe Practice Photography Photograph Mediums Theme Subtle Variation

Author:Ralph Gibson

“It occurs to me that at the beginning one works passionately to learn photography. This takes years, and the craft is usually formed during this period. Then as time passes one finds oneself more in the role of serving the medium... Then, as in the example of several masters that I have been privileged to know personally, it appears that by having devoted oneself totally to the medium, one becomes photography.”

Knows Years Has Beens Roles Example Masters Periods Photography Oneself Mediums Crafts Serving Devoted Privileged Time Passes

Author:Ralph Gibson

“Photography, too, reduces the world to strips and rectangles; photographers scrutinize the surfaces of reality in hope of unlocking the potential for significance that is latent within them.”

World Reality Photography Photographer Surface Significance Latent Unlocking Scrutinize Rectangles

Book:Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews

Source: Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews

“Photography has always been a simple medium, compared to painting in oil or chipping at marble.”

Simple Painting Photography Oil Mediums Marble

Author:John Gossage

“Photography is such an important instrument in the education of our feelings and perception because of its duality. Photography represents the world we know, and suggests a world beyond what we can see. Creativity is the gap between perception and knowledge.”

Knows World Important Feelings Creativity Perception Photography Instruments Gaps Duality

Book:Emmet Gowin: aerial photographs

Source: Emmet Gowin: aerial photographs

“This is the way photography can be cruel... in the sense that it describes everything, even the things we are not necessarily aware we're revealing.”

Way Photography Revealing

Author:Katy Grannan

“Real photography is a wonderfully inclusive, democratic medium, whereas art photography is more often a private pursuit by conmen.”

Art Real Photography Democratic Pursuit Mediums Art Photography

Author:Philip Jones Griffiths

“[Photojournalism] really is the only branch of photography that's a credit to our profession. We see, we understand; we see more, we understand more.”

Photography Credit Profession Branches Photojournalism

Author:Philip Jones Griffiths

“Aesthetics does not exist for the camera as an isolated entity. Aesthetics, in fact, is inseparable from the purpose of the photographer and the use he makes of his theme. When photography fails... it is usually because a false separation has been imposed on form and content.”

Doe Has Beens Facts Use Form Purpose Failing Photography Cameras Photographer Separation Theme Isolated Entity Aesthetics Inseparable

Author:Sid Grossman

“[Postmodern photography] implies the exhaustion of the image universe: it suggests that a photographer can find more than enough images already existing in the world without the bother of making new ones.”

World Enough Universe Photography Photographer Bother Exhaustion Postmodern

Book:Crisis of the real: writings on photography, 1974-1989

Source: Crisis of the real: writings on photography, 1974-1989

“...photography repeats itself unconsciously and unavoidably, producing stereotypes that then are repeated ad infinitum.”

Photography Repeats Ads Stereotype

Author:Andy Grundberg

“To me, photography was a completely new medium, and I did not... feel the urge to transfer to it my ideas about painting.”

Feels Ideas Painting Photography Mediums Urges Transfers

Author:John Gutmann

“The subject I liked best was painting, but the teachers didn't approve of my experiments and sometimes criticized me in front of the whole class. Maybe my love for photography came from that humiliation: a photo is something that you develop and print yourself, in the dark, and that remains in the dark until you decide to show it.”

Sometimes Whole Shows Dark Class Teacher Subjects Fronts Painting Photography Remains Experiments Print Humiliation

Author:Hiroshi Hamaya

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