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Photography Quotes

Browse 3249 quotes about Photography.

Photography Quotes

“When painting portraits a lot of people say, 'Why not get a photograph of the person?' Photography is wonderful and it is an art form in itself, but... my portrait is a culmination of elements... a truer image of a person than just the 'click' of a snapshot.”

People Persons Art Form Wonderful Painting Elements Photography Photograph Why Not Portraits Clicks Snapshots Culmination

Author:Jamie Wyeth

“The magic possibility of framing a certain space and time is what brought me to photography. This process of recording elements of 3 dimensions in the flow of time, and fixing them in a 2 dimensional image, creates a new context for the elements of the photograph.”

Certain Process Space Magic Possibility Elements Photography Flow Photograph Dimensions Time And Space Fixing Framing

Author:Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

“I believe there is no more creative medium than photography to recreate the living world of our time. Photography gladly accepts the challenge because it is at home in its element: namely, realism - real life - the now.”

World Believe Real Home I Believe Challenges Accepting Creative Elements Photography Photographer Real Life Mediums Our Time Realism

Author:Berenice Abbott

“I think there is an element of magic in photography - light, chemistry, precious metals - a certain alchemy. You can wield a camera like a magic wand almost. Murmur the right words and you can conjure up proof of a dream. I believe in wonder. I look for it in my life every day; I find it in the most ordinary things.”

“"It is light that reveals, light that obscures, light that communicates. It is light I "listen" to. The light late in the day has a distinct quality, as it fades toward the darkness of evening. After sunset there is a gentle leaving of the light, the air begins to still, and a quiet descends. I see magic in the quiet light of dusk. I feel quiet, yet intense energy in the natural elements of our habitat. A sense of magic prevails. A sense of mystery. It is a time for contemplation, for listening - a time for making photographs. "”

“The dismal half-baked images of the average "reportage" and "documentary" photography are self dammning... the slick manner, the slightly obscure significance, the esoteric fear of simple beauty for its own sake - I am deeply concerned with these manifestations of decay. Gene Smith's work validates my most vigorous convictions that if the documentary photographs is to be truly effective it must contain elements of art, intensity, fine craft and spirituality. All these his work contains and we may turn to his work with gratitude, appreciation and great respect.”

“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

“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

“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

“Photography is space, light, texture, of course, but the really important element is time - that nanosecond when the image organizes itself on the ground glass.”

Important Light Courses Space Elements Photography Glasses Organize Texture

Author:Ezra Stoller

“I think that emotional content is an image's most important element, regardless of the photographic technique. Much of the work I see these days lacks the emotional impact to draw a reaction from viewers, or remain in their hearts.”

Thinking Heart Important Emotional Elements Photography Draws Impact Technique Reactions These Days Viewers

Author:Anne Geddes

“The element of discovery is very important. I don't repeat myself well. I want and need that stimulus of walking forward from one new world to another. There is something demoralizing about going back to a place to retake pictures. You can no longer see your subjects in a fresh eye; you keep comparing them with the pictures you hold in your memory. [The] world was full of discoveries waiting to be made...(as a photographer) I could share the things I saw and learned...you would react to something all others might walk by.”

“Arguments against photography ever being considered a fine art are: the element of chance which enters in, — finding things ready-made for a machine to record, and of course the mechanics of the medium. I say that chance enters into all branches of art.”

“I photographed the entire thing in color because to photograph it in black and white would be to keep it as a tragedy. Because there is a tragic element to photographing, in this case not war, but the collapse. It was just destruction.”

War Would Be Black White Cases Color Elements Photography Destruction Tragedy Photographer Photograph Tragic Collapse Black And White

Author:Joel Meyerowitz

“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

“If you can capture the element of surprise, you're way ahead of the game.”

Ifs Way Games Elements Photography Surprise Photographer Capture Element Of Surprise Ahead Of The Game

Author:Jay Maisel

“Surprise quality can be achieved in many ways. It may be produced by a certain stimulating geometrical relationship between elements in the picture or through the human interest of the situation photographed or by calling our attention to some commonplace but fascinating thing we have never noticed before or it can be achieved by looking at an everyday thing in a new interesting way.”

“Somewhere in our search for reality we have passed something by, something important that we no longer find amid the bits and pieces of disassembled matter-something vital that we cannot build out of these parts. There is surely something else, some piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and that owes no homage to the sun.”

Life Important Matter God Reality Bits Sun Pieces Elements Photography Photographer Divinity Homage Bits And Pieces

Author:Walker Evans