Best Photography Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 19

“My generation came at a time when photography was advancing by leaps and bounds, creating the impulse to experiment and seek new approaches.”

Generations Approach Creating Photography Bounds Experiments Impulse Leap My Generation Advancing New Approach Leaps And Bounds

Author:Gjon Mili

“Why should there be only one sort of photography? I want to create images with elements of my choosing, narrative or evocative... I give myself a literary frame, I tell a story.”

Want Giving Should Stories Elements Photography Narrative

Author:Sarah Moon

“[Photography] is always like a state of grace, like the appearance of something that I hadn't foreseen, that surprises me and stops me. If I only did what I had in mind, there would be no emotion. It would be like keeping one's eyes shut rather than open, like theorizing rather than seeing.”

Ifs Mind States Would Be Eye Emotion Grace Seeing Photography Surprise Appearance Surprise Me Foreseen

Author:Sarah Moon

“I believe that the essence of photography is black and white. Color is but a deviance.”

Believe I Believe Black White Color Photography Essence Black And White Deviance

Author:Sarah Moon

“There is a lot of social photography being done now to point to the untruth of photography. It's getting very dull now. So, okay photography doesn't tell the truth. So what? Everyone has known this forever.”

Done Social Known Forever Photography Okay Dull Telling The Truth Being Done Untruth

Author:Abelardo Morell

“Photography was so perfectly suited to my sensibility and situation, it gave me a voice, a kind of crazy, out-of-whack voice, at the beginning, but a voice. I could finally put into images bottled up feelings of absurdity and alienation - and also joy and delight.”

Kind Feelings Joy Voice Situation Crazy Photography Delight Sensibility Absurdity Alienation

Author:Abelardo Morell

“...the very basics of photography [can] be potent and strange. So why not make pictures about the medium itself and see where they would take me?”

Strange Photography Mediums Why Not Take Me Basics

Book:A camera in a room: photographs

Source: A camera in a room: photographs

“I wanted to go to the end of photography.”

Ends Wanted Photography

Author:Daido Moriyama

“Photography, like any other art, is a form of communication. The artist is not blowing bubbles for his own gratification, but is speaking a language, is telling somebody something.”

Art Form Artist Language Communication Photography Art Is Bubbles Gratification

Author:William Mortensen

“I think one of the shortcomings of reality, of real experience, is most people's inability to examine something carefully and thoughtfully without moving around or being distracted by something else. What photography does really is it forces you to examine something you normally wouldn't.”

People Thinking Doe Real Reality Moving Force Photography Inability Distracted Shortcomings

Author:Grant Mudford

“One of the magical things about photography is the transformation that takes place when you photograph something. Something that inherently has very little going for it in terms of the interest you take in it, can become infinitely more interesting when rendered as a photograph. It's no longer a building. It's a photograph.”

Littles Term Interest Interesting Building Photography Transformation Photograph Going For It

Author:Grant Mudford

“Photography has become an outstanding and indispensable means of propaganda in the revolutionary struggle.”

Mean Struggle Photography Propaganda Revolutionary Indispensable Outstanding

Author:Willi Munzenberg

“Photography works upon the human eye: what is seen is reflected in the brain without the need for complicated thought. In this way the bourgeoisie takes advantage of the mental indolence of the masses and does good business as well.”

Way Needs Humans Wells Doe Eye Brain Photography Mass Advantage Complicated Bourgeoisie Indolence Good Business Human Eyes

Author:Willi Munzenberg

“Now that photography is a digital medium, the ghost of painting is coming to haunt it: photography no longer retains a sense of truth. I think that's great, because it frees photography from factuality, the same way photography freed painting from factuality in the mid-nineteenth century.”

Thinking Way Century Painting Photography Ghost Mediums Digital Nineteenth Century

Author:Vik Muniz

“I hate to say I'm a photographer, because I learned photography as I went along. But I also hate to say I'm a painter, a draftsman, even an artist. I think it's good when you're confused about what you are; it means you haven't defined yourself as an artist yet.”

Thinking Mean Artist Hate Havens Photography I Hate Photographer Painter Defined Confused Draftsman

Author:Vik Muniz

“Although I get a lot of ideas from things that have happened in my life, I see the final product as a place where my imagination meets my experience. What I love about photography is that nothing is really as it seems.”

Ideas Seems Imagination Happened Products Photography Finals My Imagination

Author:Laurel Nakadate

“I believe photography is about choosing to live, being brave. Looking is an act of courage. It's terrifying. It's possible to see too much, to witness things that we cannot hold.”

Believe I Believe Too Much Photography Brave Witness Acts Of Courage Choosing To Live

Author:Laurel Nakadate

“Photography has saved my life, over and over again.”

Photography Saved

Author:Laurel Nakadate

“[Photography] ties back into this feeling of wanting to watch things fall and the moment before they break. Fireworks are that way for me - this lovely thing that blows up and is gone. It all goes back to this desire to record things before they disappear - the original reason we take pictures, right?”

Way Reason Moments Feelings Desire Fall Watches Break Gone Records Photography Originals Blow Disappear Lovely Ties Fireworks Lovely Things

Author:Laurel Nakadate

“Photography does not form a separate, barren field of art. It is only a means of execution, uniform, rapid and sure, which serves the artist by reproducing with mathematical precision the form and effect of objects and even that poetry which at once arises from any harmonious combination.”

Mean Doe Art Form Artist Effects Fields Objects Photography Arise Mathematical Combination Execution Uniforms Rapids Harmonious Precision Barren Reproducing

Author:Charles Negre

“If art is the poetic interpretation of nature, photography is the exact translation; it is exactitude in art or the complement of art. (1854)”

Ifs Art Photography Art Is Poetic Interpretation Translations Complement Exactitude

Author:Charles Negre

“Photography is more than a window for me. Photography is more like a space that tries to capture situations.”

Trying Space Situation Photography Window Capture

Author:Gabriel Orozco

“I had a growing feeling that most of the best art of the world in painting and sculpture had been done, and that this newest form [photography] was more related to the progress and tempo of modern science of the eye.”

World Art Done Feelings Eye Form Growing Progress Modern Painting Photography Related Sculpture Tempo Modern Science Best Art

Book:Paul Outerbridge, Jr: photographs

Source: Paul Outerbridge, Jr: photographs

“In black and white you suggest, in color you state.”

States Black White Color Photography Photographer Black And White Absolute Certainty Color Photography Monochromatic

Book:Paul Outerbridge, Jr: photographs

Source: Paul Outerbridge, Jr: photographs

“As an allegorical art, then, photography would represent our desire to fix the transitory, the ephemeral, in a stable and stabilizing image.”

Art Desire Photography Stable Ephemeral Transitory

Book:Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power, and Culture

Source: Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power, and Culture

“[My photography teacher] gave me the Mexican Day Books of Edward Weston and just blew me away with this work. The fact that you could be this fabulous visual artist, with all this milieu of people like Diego Rivera and you could sleep with these gorgeous, amazing women, that you could live that life - that photography could deliver you that life.”

People Book Facts Artist Sleep Teacher Photography Visuals Fabulous Gorgeous Mexican Visual Art Milieu Visual Artist Amazing Woman

Author:Max Pam

“Photography's about the surface, what's happening at the top of the sea. Literature's about all the stuff below.”

Literature Stuff Sea Photography Happenings Surface

Author:Max Pam

“I believe that the (distorting) mirror which is photography holds an intrinsic, even elemental, relation to writing.”

Writing Believe I Believe Photography Relation Mirrors Elementals

Author:Tod Papageorge

“Photography is a life of learning. That's all I want from photography. I don't want the money. I don't need the fame. I don't need the admiration. I'd like all of those things, but I don't need them. Because what I get from photographing is learning. I have spent my life learning by looking through a lens.”

Want Needs Fame Photography Admiration Lenses Life Learning

Author:Rondal Partridge

“Edward [Weston] was the first artist - and I don't use the word lightly - to make a living doing art photography. Other photographers did commercial work, or worked for the government.”

Firsts Art Use Government Artist Photography Photographer Art Photography

Author:Rondal Partridge

“There is not a big difference between life and taking pictures... You're in the middle of life, you're living, making love, eating, sleeping - and photography is part of it. And I don't say this because I'm being romantic. I say this because that's just the way it happens to be.”

Way Bigs Happens Differences Sleep Middle Eating Photography Making Love Taking Pictures

Author:Anders Petersen

“The work of the artist is not so much what you say or what you know, it's recognizing what you know. That's what life is about. That's what photography is about. You see something, or you hear someone say something, and you say That is a truth. You know, deep in you. That's when you start shooting.”

Knows Life Is Artist Photography Shooting Recognizing

Author:Sylvia Plachy

“I would say that the emblematic photographic image is a picture from inside a room looking out. I think this defines photography. It's the metaphor for the notion of first sight. What one saw first.”

Thinking Firsts Rooms Saws Photography Sight Notion Metaphor

Author:Robert Polidori

“At the end of the day, photography is ninety-nine percent business, connections, and politics and one percent creativity.”

Ends Creativity Photography Percent Connections Nine The End Of The Day Ninety Ninety Nine

Author:Rankin

“Let us... leave art to the artists, and let us try to use the medium of photography to create photographs that can endure because of their photographic qualities.”

Trying Art Use Artist Quality Photography Endure Photograph Mediums

Book:Albert Renger-Patzsch: joy before the object

Source: Albert Renger-Patzsch: joy before the object

“In photography one should surely proceed from essence of the object and attempt to represent it with photographic terms alone.”

Should Term Objects Photography Essence

Author:Albert Renger-Patzsch

“... modern life is no longer thinkable without photography.”

Life Is Modern Photography Modern Life Thinkable

Author:Albert Renger-Patzsch

“There was a time when one looked over one's shoulder with an ironical smile at the photographer and when photography as a profession seemed almost invariably a target for ridicule. That time is now over.”

Photography Photographer Profession Shoulders Target Ridicule

Author:Albert Renger-Patzsch

“To do justice to modern technology's rigid linear structure, to the lofty gridwork of cranes and bridges, to the dynamism of machines operating at one thousand horsepower - only photography is capable of that. What those who are attached to the painterly style regard as photography's defect, the mechanical reproduction of form - is just what makes it superior to all other means of expression.”

“...it is pretentious for photographers to believe that their pictures alone change things. If they did, we wouldn't be besieged by war, by incidents of genocide, by hunger. A more realistic assessment of photography's value is to point out that it is illustrative of what's going on, that it provides a record of history, that photographs can prompt dialogue.”

Ifs Believe War Values Records Photography Photographer Photograph Hunger Dialogue Realistic Genocide Incidents Assessment Pretentious Prompts

Author:Eugene Richards

“It's a process of getting to know people. That's what photography is to me. It's about paying attention, not screwing up and blowing a great opportunity.”

People Knows Opportunity Process Attention Photography Pay Attention Great Opportunity

Author:Eugene Richards

“In fact, the new malleability of the image may eventually lead to a profound undermining of photography's status as an inherently truthful pictorial form... If even a minimal confidence in photography does not survive, it is questionable whether many pictures will have meaning anymore, not only as symbols but as evidence.”

Ifs May Doe Facts Form Photography Evidence Profound Symbols Truthful Questionable Undermining Pictorial

Author:Fred Ritchin

“I always believed that photography was subjective, interpretive and certainly did not represent the truth, but I did think that its status as a societal and historical referent needed to be both safeguarded and illuminated....now photojournalism is devolving into yet another medium perceived as intending to shock, titillate, sell, distort.”

Thinking Needed Photography Sells Historical Mediums Shock Subjective Always Believe Photojournalism

Author:Fred Ritchin

“The decisive moment, the popular Henri Cartier-Bresson approach to photography in which a scene is stopped and depicted at a certain point of high visual drama, is now possible to achieve at any time. One's photographs, years later, may be retroactively rephotographed by repositioning the photographer or the subject of the photograph, or by adding elements that were never there before but now are made to exist concurrently in a newly elastic sense of space and time.”

Source: In our own image: the coming revolution in photography : how computer technology is changing our view of the world

“Straight photography, following the medium, is intoxicating - trying to wrestle it into the form of a poem.”

Trying Form Photography Following Mediums

Author:Thomas Roma

“The question is not whether a picture is good, in some formal, technical sense, but, does it mean what I need it to mean? Writers can edit sentences that may be well-crafted but that don't express an intended thought. But in photography, there are no revisions: A photograph is in or it's out, and the photographer must live with the consequences of his or her choices.”

Needs Wells May Mean Doe Choices Photography Consequence Photographer Photograph Sentences Formal Edits Revision

Author:Thomas Roma

“I approached photography the only way that I knew how to approach anything: as a job. I would get up, photograph all morning, stop and have lunch, and then, photograph all afternoon. I didn't think that I had to wait for some inspiration.”

Thinking Way Inspiration Jobs Waiting Morning Approach Photography Photograph Get Up Lunch Afternoon

Author:Thomas Roma

“Photography [can] be seen as a system of representation that you bring to bear on other systems.”

Bears Photography Representation

Author:Martha Rosler

“Any familiarity with photographic history shows that manipulation is integral to photography.”

Shows Photography Manipulation Familiarity

Book:Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001

Source: Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001

“I believe that photography can only reproduce the surface of things. The same applies to a portrait. I take photographs of people the same way I would take photographs of a plaster bust.”

People Way Believe I Believe Photography Photograph Surface Portraits Plasters

Author:Thomas Ruff

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