Best photography & artist Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Before the people at large, and for that matter, the artists themselves, understand what photography really means, as I understand that term, it is essential for them to be taught the real meaning of art.”

People Mean Art Real Matter Artist Term Taught Essentials Photography Really Mean Meaning Of Art

Book:Stieglitz on photography: his selected essays and notes

Source: Stieglitz on photography: his selected essays and notes

“Acting is just another way to express myself as an artist. I realized if you're an artist, you're an artist and you can express that through music, through painting, through photography, through acting - this is just another way for me to express myself.”

Ifs Way Artist Acting Painting Photography I Realized Another Way

Author:Common

“If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.”

Ifs Men Would Be Artist Tree He Man Flower Kings Photography Paint Photographer Surface

Book:The Gentle Art of Making Enemies

Source: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies

“When you see what you express through photography, you realize all the things that can no longer be the objectives of painting. Why should an artist persist in treating subjects that can be established so clearly with the lens of a camera?”

Should Artist Realizing Subjects Painting Photography Cameras Objectives Persist Lenses

Author:Pablo Picasso

“For the artist who practises photography, capturing the image is learning how to sketch on some medium, but is only half the challenge; learning how to print is applying a subjective pallet to that sketch, and completes the creative process.”

Artist Process Challenges Half Creative Photography Mediums Print Creative Process Subjective Practise Methodology Pallets

Author:David Travis

“As every artist who has used the method knows - photography's a loyal slave and a tyrannical master.”

Knows Used Artist Masters Photography Method Slave Loyal

Author:Robert Genn

“Photography is unlike any other art form. In the other arts there is always a continuous interplay between the artist and his art. He has the painting or sculpture before him. What we have tried to do is to provide a medium for "artistic expression" to anyone with only a reasonable amount of time. By giving him a camera system with which he need only control his selection of focus, composition and lighting, we free him to select the moment and to criticize immediately what he has done. We enable him to see what else he wants to do on the basis of what he has just learned.”

“The over-reliance on photography holds so many artists back.”

Artist Photography Reliance

Author:Jacob Collins

“My background is in painting but in school in the sixties, like many artists of that time, I believed that painting was dead. I began to work in collaboration with other artists in the creation of performances and installation works. Soon after, I started making video and photographic works and in the process became fascinated with the media itself. Before long I was setting things up just for the camera. In l970 I got a dog and he turned out to be very interested in video and photography as well.”

Wells Long School Artist Process Media Dog Creation Painting Photography Performances Cameras Backgrounds Setting Video Settings Collaboration Fascinated Sixty Installation

Author:William Wegman

“What is a portrait good for, unless it shows just how the subject was seen by the painter? In the old days before photography came in a sitter had a perfect right to say to the artist: "Paint me just as I am." Now if he wishes absolute fidelity he can go to the photographer and get it.”

Ifs Shows Artist Wish Perfect Subjects Photography Absolutes Paint Photographer Painter Portraits Fidelity Old Days

Author:Aubrey Beardsley

“At one point cinema and photography weren't treated as art. Now it's crazy to think they're not. The key question is "What is art today?" The most important artists of the last 20 years are Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive, because the influence they have had is incredible and they've changed the world. That is art.”

Thinking World Years Art Important Today Jobs Lasts Artist Crazy Influence Changed Keys Photography Incredibles Treated Cinema

Author:Ferran Adria

“Photography is a medium of formidable contradictions. It is both ridiculously easy and almost impossibly difficult. It is easy because its technical rudiments can readily be mastered by anyonwith a few simple instructions. It is difficult because, while while the artist working in any other medium begins with a blank surface and gradually brings his conception into being, the photographer is the only imagemaker who begins with the picture completed. His emotions, his knowledge, and his native talent are brought into focus and fixed beyond recall the moment the shutter of his camera has closed.”

“Becoming a professional artist takes talent and perseverance, even more so when the field is photography.”

Artist Talent Fields Becoming Photography Perseverance

Author:Clyde Butcher

“Not only do we end up with a vivid, surprising and soulful sense of one artist and his work, but Leigh also offers us a commanding view of a city, London, and country at the dawn of the modern age and of a man being overawed and overtaken by new technologies such as photography and the railways. As ever with Leigh, 'Mr Turner' addresses the big questions with small moments. It's an extraordinary film, all at once strange, entertaining, thoughtful and exciting.”

“I like to work in the real world, so I do a lot of searching or just simple looking. But I'm not above tweaking reality and making something up. I don't think there are any rules in art. It's not so much what you see as it is the significance you, the artist, see in it.”

Thinking World Art Real Reality Artist Simple Photography Significance Real World

Author:Keith Carter

“The discussion about whether photography is or isn't art is dated and of no interest. Your work makes you an artist, not your title.”

Art Artist Interest Photography Art Is Titles Discussion

Author:Peter Lindbergh

“We all start in this medium because of the magic and the challenge is to keep it going.”

Artist Challenges Magic Photography Quitting Mediums Keep Going Never Quit

Author:John Sexton

“I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.”

Lying Artist Secret Mets Photography Photographer

Author:John Sexton

“I think the greatest photographers are the amateur photographers who do it because they love it. Arnold Newman is a good example; he is a consummate professional, but he's also an 'amateur' in the pure sense of the word.”

Thinking Artist Example Pure Photography Photographer Good Examples Newman

Author:John Sexton

“I've found even after nearly 30 years of doing this, there are all kinds of new surprises that rear their heads at various times and I truly believe that 51% of the images, success takes place in the darkroom.”

Years Believe Kind Artist Found Photography Surprise Photographer Various All Kinds Darkroom

Author:John Sexton

“Only the bad artists of the nineteenth century were frightened by the invention of photography; the good ones all welcomed it and used it.”

Used Artist Century Photography Invention Frightened Nineteenth Century

Book:The romantic rebellion: romantic versus classic art

Source: The romantic rebellion: romantic versus classic art

“Through photography, both artist and scientist can find a common denominator in their search for the synthesis of modern vision in time, space and structure.”

Artist Space Common Vision Modern Photography Scientist Structure Synthesis Common Denominator

Author:Ernst Haas

“Only the bad artists of the nineteenth century were frightened by the invention of photography; the good ones all welcomed it and used it. Degas liked it not only because it provided an accurate record, but because the snapshot showed him a means of escape from the classical rules of design. Through it he learnt to make a composition without the use of formal symmetry.”

Mean Use Used Artist Records Century Design Photography Invention Frightened Accurate Composition Formal Nineteenth Century Symmetry Snapshots Degas

Book:The romantic rebellion: romantic versus classic art

Source: The romantic rebellion: romantic versus classic art

“For me there are no rules. I think I learned that from artists-from painters and sculptors. It took photography a while to catch up to them.”

Thinking Artist Photography Painter Sculptors

Author:Larry Clark

“All technical refinements discourage me. Perfect photography, larger screens, hi-fi sound, all make it possible for mediocrities slavishly to reproduce nature; and this reproduction bores me. What interests me is the interpretation of life by an artist. The personality of the film maker interests me more than the copy of an object.”

Film Artist Sound Interest Perfect Objects Personality Photography Screens Interpretation Copies Makers Mediocrity Bores Discouraging Reproduction Refinement

Author:Jean Renoir

“What most artists using photography feel that they need to do is to show that they are serious, that they are not taking snapshots. To point a camera at something does not qualify you as an artist because everybody has done that.”

Needs Feels Doe Done Shows Artist Serious Photography Cameras Snapshots

Author:Wolfgang Tillmans

“Photography is better than art. It is a solar phenomenon in which the artist collaborates with the sun.”

Art Artist Sun Photography Phenomenon

Author:Alphonse de Lamartine

“I hate it when people say, I'm an artist. I think, well, I'll be the judge of that. And I don't think artist is a job description. It's a critique, a favorable critique, that someone else might apply to your work. I guess in the art world I'm not exactly a photographer, but I do use photography.”

People Thinking World Wells Art Use Might Jobs Artist Hate Judging Photography I Hate Photographer Description Critique Art World

Author:John Waters

“The invention of photography has dealt a mortal blow to the old modes of expression, in painting as well as in poetry, where automatic writing, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, is a true photography of thought. Since a blind instrument now assured artists of achieving the aim they had set themselves up to that time, they now aspired, not without recklessness, to break with the imitation of appearances.”

Writing Wells Ends Artist Break Achieve Century Painting Expression Photography Aim Instruments Blind Blow Appearance Invention Mortals Imitation Assured Nineteenth Century Recklessness

Author:Andre Breton

“[Documentary photography] is unwittingly literary, because it is nothing other than an observation of contemporary life apprehended at the right moment by an artist capable of seizing it. (1928)”

Moments Artist Photography Capable Contemporary Observation Documentaries Right Moment Seizing Contemporary Life Documentary Photography

Author:Pierre Mac Orlan

“The fact that few painter-fine-artists used photography in their work made it appealing.”

Made Facts Used Artist Fine Photography Painter Made It Fine Artists

Author:Edward Ruscha

“There is something abominable about cameras, because they possess the power to invent many worlds. As an artist who has been lost in this wilderness of mechanical reproduction for many years, I do not know which world to start with. I have seen fellow artists driven to the point of frenzy by photography.”

Knows World Years Has Beens Artist Lost Photography Cameras Fellows Driven Wilderness Reproduction Frenzy

Book:Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

Source: Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

“Photography is nature seen from the eyes outward, painting from the eyes inward. Photography records inalterably the single image, while painting records a plurality of images willfully directed by the artist.”

Eye Artist Records Painting Photography Inward

Book:Charles Sheeler: Essays by Martin Friedman, Bartlett Hayes [and] Charles Millard

Source: Charles Sheeler: Essays by Martin Friedman, Bartlett Hayes [and] Charles Millard

“In the business of portrait photography, one must combine the artist and the craftsman.”

Artist Photography Portraits Craftsman Portrait Photography

Author:Louis Fabian Bachrach, Jr.

“I assumed from the outset that photography was already art, and that I and other people working in photography were artists. I understand now that this was a minority point of view.”

People Art Artist Views Photography Point Of View Minorities

Author:Lewis Baltz

“Many artists, having assimilated the Conceptualists' explorations to varying degrees, have reused the painterly model and use photography, quite consciously and systematically, to produce works that stand alone and exist as photographic paintings.”

Use Artist Produce Painting Degrees Photography Models Exploration Stand Alone

Author:Jean-Francois Chevrier

“It was only with the emergence of the Conceptualist approaches of the late 1960s that the opposition between artists using photography and photographers became explicit.”

Artist Late Approach Photography Photographer Opposition 1960s Emergence Explicit

Author:Jean-Francois Chevrier

“Photography is, and has been since its conception, a fabulously broad church. Contemporary practice demonstrates that the medium can be a prompt, a process, a vehicle, a collective pursuit, and not just the physical end product of solitary artists' endeavors.”

Has Beens Ends Artist Process Church Practice Products Photography Pursuit Contemporary Mediums Collectives Broads Endeavor Conception Vehicle Solitary Prompts

Author:Charlotte Cotton

“[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

“There is more in art, with an apology to that much abused word, as applied to photography, than startling display lines, on mounts and signs announcing artist Photographer, Artistic Photography Studio, etc., and the lower the standard the more frantic the claim.”

Art Artist Lines Photography Standards Claims Photographer Studios Artistic Etc Display Apology Frantic Announcing

Author:Gertrude Kasebier

“Fine-art photography is a very small world associated with galleries, museums, and university art programs. It's not like rock music; the products of this world have never been widely seen because the artists are often exploring things that are not already coded in general consciousness. It's not that photographers don't want to be famous, it's just that very few of the views from the edges of culture make the mainstream. Ansel Adams was an exception.”

“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 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

“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

“[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

“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

“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

“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

“I think I'm really fortunate to be an installation artist who is heavily invested in photography: I don't have the emotional problems with the loss of work that some installation artists have. The photographs wouldn't exist without the installation... but at the same time, I think I'd kill myself if I only did installations. There's something deeply tragic about doing work that you know is temporal.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Problem Artist Loss Emotional Photography Photograph Fortunate Tragic Installation Emotional Problems

Author:Sandy Skoglund

“True, there are photographers who are failed artists, but so are most artists.”

Artist Photography Photographer

Author:Bill Jay

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