Best Photography Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 36

“When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches.”

Matter Vision Subjects Fit Photography Photographer Patterns Following Composition Repetition Cliche Subject Matter Tedious Freshness Pictorial Following Rules

Book:Edward Weston on photography

Source: Edward Weston on photography

“If you can't make the image bigger or more important than what you see, then don't push the button”

Ifs Important Photography Bigger Photographer Buttons

Author:Ruth Bernhard

“A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he's being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he's wearing or how he looks. He's implicated in what's happening, and he has a certain real power over the result.”

Knows Looks Doe Real Certain Results Photography Happenings Photograph Portraits Real Power

Author:Richard Avedon

“A portrait photographer depends upon another person to complete his picture. The subject imagined, which in a sense is me, must be discovered in someone else willing to take part in a fiction he cannot possibly know about.”

Knows Persons Fiction Subjects Willing Depends Photography Photographer Portraits

Author:Richard Avedon

“"Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?""”

Thinking World Want Feels Looks Doe Dream Eye Moving Asks My Own Subjects Photography Conviction Reactions Statements Print Personal Statement

Author:Ansel Adams

“The technique of 35mm photography appears simple. One is beguiled by the quick viewing and operation, and by the very questionable inclination to make many pictures with the hope that some will be good.”

Simple Photography Be Good Technique Operations Inclination Questionable

Author:Ansel Adams

“There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.”

Thinking Giving Made Spirit Class Forever Particular Photography Photographer Photograph Damn Don't Give A Damn Always And Forever I Don't Give A Damn

Author:Minor White

“The craft of photography is the key to good images.”

Keys Photography Crafts

Author:Ansel Adams

“If you want to photograph a man spinning, give some thought to why he spins. Understanding for a photographer is as important as the equipment he uses.”

Ifs Men Want Giving Important Use Understanding Photography Photographer Photograph Equipment Spinning

Book:Portrait of Myself

Source: Portrait of Myself

“In photographing dwarfs, you don't get majesty & beauty. You get dwarfs.”

Photography Majesty Dwarfs

Author:Susan Sontag

“It's easy to photograph light reflecting from a surface, the truly hard part is capturing the light in the air.”

Hard Light Easy Air Photography Photographer Photograph Surface Reflecting

Author:Walker Evans

“The first picture of his I ever saw was during a lecture at the Rhyl camera club. I was 16 and the speaker was Emrys Jones. He projected the picture upside down. Deliberately, to disregard the subject matter to reveal the composition. It's a lesson I've never forgotten.”

Firsts Matter Saws Subjects Lessons Photography Cameras Forgotten Clubs Speakers Composition Lectures Subject Matter Upside Down Disregard

Author:Philip Jones Griffiths

“...to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude.”

Photography Photograph

Book:Regarding the Pain of Others

Source: Regarding the Pain of Others

“And young people who are learning digital skills discover that the real challenge is coming up with an image that resonates, first of all, with your self and hopefully, with an audience. They can learn all these new techniques and think that they're easier to use, but creating great images isn't about the tools.”

People Thinking Firsts Real Self Use Young Challenges Audience Easier Skills Creating Photography Tools Technique Hopefully Digital

Author:Jerry Uelsmann

“Editions made sense when people worked with engravings where the plate wore down as prints were made. An early number of the edition had slightly better quality. But that's not the case with photography. To me, it's a false way of creating value.”

People Way Made Values Numbers Quality Cases Creating Photography Print Plates Creating Value

Author:Jerry Uelsmann

“It's equally hard and labor intensive to create an image on the computer as it is in a darkroom. Believe me.”

Believe Hard Computer Photography Labor Believe In Me Darkroom

Author:Jerry Uelsmann

“Learn from the best; the second raters have nothing to offer.”

Offers Photography

Author:David Hurn

“Photography is the easiest thing in the world if one is willing to accept pictures that are flaccid, limp, bland, banal, indiscriminately informative, and pointless. But if one insists in a photograph that is both complex and vigorous it is almost impossible”

Ifs World Accepting Impossible Willing Photography Complexes Photograph Pointless Vigorous Bland Informative

Author:John Szarkowski

“We emphasized the creativeness that happens at the moment of seeing over the kind that takes place in the dark room.”

Kind Moments Happens Dark Rooms Seeing Photography Dark Room Creativeness

Author:Minor White

“Reaching a 'creative' state of mind thru positive action is considered preferable to waiting for 'inspiration'.”

Mind States Inspiration Action Waiting Creative Photography Photographer Reaching State Of Mind

Author:Minor White

“Students were taught by doing.”

Students Taught Photography

Author:Minor White

“If there is any method in the way I take pictures, I believe it lies in this: See the subject first. Do not try to force it to be a picture of this, that or the other thing. Stand apart from it. Then something will happen. The subject will reveal itself.”

Ifs Way Trying Firsts Believe Happens Lying Force I Believe Subjects Photography Method Photographer

Book:Bill Brandt: Selected Texts & Bibliography

Source: Bill Brandt: Selected Texts & Bibliography

“To see color as form means looking at the image in a new way, trying to free oneself from absorption in subject matter.”

Way Trying Mean Matter Form Subjects Color Photography Oneself New Ways Subject Matter Absorption

Author:Cole Weston

“A camera has interesting ideas of its own.”

Ideas Interesting Photography Cameras Interesting Ideas

Author:John Szarkowski

“The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.”

Should Used Photography Cameras Photographer Flesh Substance Steel Polished Rendering Quintessence

Book:Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: the Mexico years

Source: Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: the Mexico years

“"Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed "artists"."”

Self Spirit Lying Artist Effort Honest Approach Photography Cameras Photographer Mediums Communion Inquiry Swagger

Book:The daybooks of Edward Weston

Source: The daybooks of Edward Weston

“The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it.”

“Never ever say the word shoot when you are taking a picture with a camera because a camera is not a violent weapon.”

Photography Weapons Cameras Photographer Violent

Author:Ruth Bernhard

“I was extravagant in the matter of cameras - anything photographic - I had to have the best. But that was to further my work. In most things I have gone along with the plainest - or without.”

Matter Gone Photography Cameras Extravagant

Book:The Daybooks of Edward Weston: California

Source: The Daybooks of Edward Weston: California

“People are under the illusion that it's easy...Technically, it is complex. You have a million options with equipment to distract you. I tell my students to simplify their equipment.”

People Easy Millions Students Photography Illusion Complexes Equipment Simplify

Author:Brett Weston

“Image quality is not the product of a machine, but of the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression.”

Persons Imagination Quality Expression Products Limits Photography Machines

Author:Ansel Adams

“I often see the materials of photography as being a type of terrain. Emulsions, liquid developers, silver salts, and fixers interact, and I construct a landscape that I need to first explore in my mind's eye if I am to make it manifest as an artful image in silver.”

Ifs Needs Mind Firsts Eye Materials Type Photography Photographer Landscape Silver Manifest Salt Constructs Liquid Developers Terrain Fixers

Book:New England Days

Source: New England Days

“I want the stark beauty that a lens can so exactly render presented without interference of artistic effect.”

Want Effects Photography Photographer Artistic Lenses Interference Starks

Book:The daybooks of Edward Weston

Source: The daybooks of Edward Weston

“The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject, and the camera will all but take you by the hand and point the way.”

Way Hands Subjects Photography Cameras Instruments Remarkable Woman Artist

Book:Portrait of Myself

Source: Portrait of Myself

“It is essential for the photographer to know the effect of his lenses. The lens is his eye, and it makes or ruins his pictures. A feeling for composition is a great asset. I think it is very much a matter of instinct. It can perhaps be developed, but I doubt if it can be learned. To achieve his best work, the young photographer must discover what really excites him visually. He must discover his own world.”

Source: Bill Brandt: Selected Texts & Bibliography

“The camera is not only an extension of the eye but of the brain. It can see sharper, farther, nearer, slower, faster than the eye. It can see by invisible light. It can see in the past, present, and future. Instead of using the camera only to reproduce objects, I wanted to use it to make what is invisible to the eye - visible.”

Use Light Eye Wanted Past Brain Objects Photography Cameras Invisible Faster Visible Extensions Past Present Past Present And Future

Author:Wynn Bullock

“A photograph is the illusion of a literal description of how the camera 'saw' a piece of time and space.”

Art Space Creativity Saws Pieces Photography Illusion Cameras Photograph Description Time And Space Literal

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I like to think of photographing as a two-way act of respect. Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the subject, by describing it as it is. A photograph must be responsible to both.”

Thinking Way Doe Two Subjects Photography Responsible Photograph Mediums Two Ways Describing Being Responsible

Author:Garry Winogrand

“There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described.”

Facts Photography Mysterious

Author:Garry Winogrand

“All things are photographable.”

Photography All Things

Author:Garry Winogrand

“A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.”

Real Painting Photography Photograph Mask Interpretation Footprint

Author:Susan Sontag

“Photography, fortunately, to me has not only been a profession but also a contact between people - to understand human nature and record, if possible, the best in each individual.”

People Ifs Humans Individual Records Human Nature Photography Profession Contact

Book:Muray's celebrity portraits of the twenties and thirties: 135 photographs

Source: Muray's celebrity portraits of the twenties and thirties: 135 photographs

“Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.”

World Way Light Today Jobs Records This World Photography Shadow Light And Shadow

Book:Slumgullion stew: an Edward Abbey reader

Source: Slumgullion stew: an Edward Abbey reader

“The best photographs are made by the best people.”

People Made Photography Photograph

Author:Morley Baer

“Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term-selectivity.”

Should Firsts Term Simple Quality Painting Exercise Photography Photographer Photograph Technique Significant Statements Print Sheer Documents Symphony Pretty Picture

Author:Berenice Abbott

“What is the subject matter of this apparently very personal world? It has been suggested that these shapes and images are underworld characters, the inhabitants of the vast common realm of memories that have gone down below the level of conscious control. It may be they are. The degree of emotional involvement and the amount of free association with the material being photographed would point in that direction.”

“The business of making a photograph may be said in simple terms to consist of three elements: the objective world (whose permanent condition is change and disorder), the sheet of paper on which the picture will be realized, and the experience which brings them together.”

World May Said Together Three Term Simple Conditions Elements Paper Photography Photograph Objectives Permanent Disorder Sheets

Book:Aaron Siskind, photographer

Source: Aaron Siskind, photographer

“The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.”

Giving Artist Virtue Photography Cameras Photographer Impulse Camera And Photography

Book:Once Around the Sun

Source: Once Around the Sun

“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”

“A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there-even if you put them end to end, they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds, snatched from eternity.”

Ifs Stills Two Ends Three Photography Eternity Add Photograph Seconds

Book:Photographs

Source: Photographs

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Photography Quotes