Best photography & eye Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“The photographs are not illustrative. They, and the text, are coequal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative. By their fewness, and by the importance of the reader’s eye, this will be misunderstood by most of that minority which does not wholly ignore it. In the interests, however, of the history and future of photography, that risk seems irrelevant, and this flat statement necessary.”

Doe Seems Eye Interest Risk Reader Photography Importance Independent Photographer Photograph Statements Minorities Flats Irrelevant Misunderstood

Author:Walker Evans

“We have - through a hundred years of photography and two decades of film - been enormously enriched... We may say we see the world with entirely different eyes.”

World Years May Two Different Eye Film Photography Hundred Decades

Author:Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

“Photography is nature seen from the eyes outwards. Painting is nature seen from the eyes inwards.”

Eye Painting Photography

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

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

“The eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.”

Feelings Eye Photography Photographer Traffic Joyous Photography By Photographers Great Photography

Book:Walker Evans at Fortune, 1945-1965, Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1977-23 January, 1978

Source: Walker Evans at Fortune, 1945-1965, Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1977-23 January, 1978

“I work rather blindly. I have a theory that seems to work with me that some of the best things you ever do sort of come through you. You don't know where you get the impetus and response to what's before your eyes.”

Knows Seems Eye Theory Photography Response Photographer Best Things Impetus

Author:Walker Evans

“To chart a course, one must have a direction. In reality, the eye is no better than the philosophy behind it. The photographer creates, evolves a better, more selective, more acute eye by looking ever more sharply at what is going on in the world. Like every other means of expression, photography, if it is to be utterly honest and direct, should be related to the life of the times-the pulse of today. The photograph may be presented as finely and artistically as you will, but to merit serious consideration, must be directly connected with the world we live in.”

“When I started using the extreme short depth of field and single point of focus, I was trying to replicate my changing eyesight. We have binocular vision; one eye perceives space from the other. I don't experience a scene visually at F32. It's more like F1.4.”

Trying Eye Space Vision Focus Fields Scene Photography Depth Extremes Perceive Replicate Eyesight Depth Of Field

Author:Keith Carter

“I like small things, I like small moments that are almost elliptical, that are not necessarily linear; they're natural things that happen in the world, but if you look at them from a slight angle there's more than meets the eye.”

Ifs World Looks Moments Happens Eye Natural Photography Angle Small Things Linear Natural Things Small Moments More Than Meets The Eye

Author:Keith Carter

“You become things, you become an atmosphere, and if you become it, which means you incorporate it within you, you can also give it back. You can put this feeling into a picture. A painter can do it. And a musician can do it and I think a photographer can do that too and that I would call the dreaming with open eyes.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Mean Feelings Dream Eye Can Do Creativity Photography Musician Photographer Painter Atmosphere Within You Open Eyes

Author:Ernst Haas

“When the object that is produced...the photographic image...has the ability to make tears come to your eyes; to inspire you to the point where you have to catch your breath, then nothing else matters.”

Matter Eye Ability Objects Tears Inspire Photography Breaths Photographer

Author:John Sexton

“A photographer needs to be a good editor of negatives and prints! In fact, most of the prints I make are for my eyes only, and they are no good. I find the single most valuable tool in the darkroom is my trash can - that's where most of my prints end up.”

Needs Ends Facts Eye Photography Tools Photographer Valuable Print Editors Trash Trash Cans Darkroom

Author:John Sexton

“Photography is choosing where to point your eye-cone.”

Eye Photography Cones

Author:John Szarkowski

“On digital photography: It's fantastic, but it's not a freebie for anything. You still have to have this (he points to his eyes), and this (points to his heart), and feet.”

Heart Stills Eye Feet Photography Fantastic His Eyes Digital Digital Photography

Author:Rene Burri

“I think that digital is offering many great possibilities for cinematographers. Particularly in urban cityscapes and low light photography its allowing us to render what we actually see with our eyes; which is interesting.”

Thinking Light Eye Interesting Possibility Photography Lows Digital Allowing Offering Urban Cinematographers Cityscapes

Author:Seamus McGarvey

“Thanks to photography, the eye grew accustomed to anticipate what it should see and to see it; and it learned not to see nonexistent things which, hitherto, it had seen so clearly.”

Should Eye Grew Photography Thanks Accustomed Anticipate

Author:Paul Valery

“I'm not very eloquent about things like this, but I think that writing and photography go together. I don't mean that they are related arts, because they're not. But the person doing it, I think, learns from both things about accuracy of the eye, about observation, and about sympathy toward what is in front of you... It's about honesty, or truth telling, and a way to find it in yourself, how to need it and learn from it.”

Thinking Way Needs Writing Mean Persons Art Eye Together Fronts Honesty Photography Art Is Observation Related Telling The Truth Accuracy Eloquent

Author:Eudora Welty

“Photography can strip from the world that spiritual dust and grime with which our eyes have covered it.”

World Eye Spiritual Photography Dust Covered Grime

Author:Andre Bazin

“Photography is solitary and there are lags between seeing with your eyes and seeing through the lens, and then seeing the image on your computer... I often see things after the fact. So there’s a revelatory quality. And this definitely includes a sense of playfulness, because you’re not sure what the consequences are going to be.”

Facts Eye Quality Seeing Computer Photography Consequence Not Sure Solitary Lenses Playfulness Lag

Author:Christian Marclay

“Photography's a case of keeping all the pores of the skin open, as well as the eyes. A lot of photographers today think that by putting on the uniform, the fishing vest, and all the Nikons, that that makes them a photographer. But it doesn't. It's not just seeing. It's feeling.”

Thinking Wells Feelings Eye Today Cases Seeing Photography Skins Photographer Fishing Uniforms Vests Nikon

Author:Don McCullin

“The dominant problem of pictorial art since the nineteen-fifties is photography, and, by extension, film and video. The basilisk eye of the camera has withered the pride of handworked mediums. Painting survives on a case-by-case basis, its successes amounting to special exemptions from a verdict of history.”

Art Problem Eye Film Cases Special Painting Pride Photography Bases Cameras Video Mediums Dominant Extensions Nineteen Verdict Withered Pictorial Exemption

Author:Peter Schjeldahl

“We used the camera only as a means of expression and as a visual medium that offers possibilities found in no other artistic technique, possibilities that the eye cannot catch in their totality. We tried to establish a characteristic vision of photography.”

Mean Eye Used Found Vision Possibility Expression Offers Photography Cameras Technique Mediums Artistic Characteristics Visuals Totality

Author:Piet Zwart

“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

“All we did was to turn back the time to a photography of precision which is superior to the human eye.”

Humans Eye Turns Photography Superiors Precision Human Eyes

Author:Bernd Becher

“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

“What the eye sees is a synthesis of who you are and all you have learned. This is what I would call the language of photography.”

Eye Language Photography Who You Are Synthesis

Author:Graciela Iturbide

“[Photography] is the non-complacence of the eye. To practice my right to look is also a critical attitude. If I stare at you, I will make you uncomfortable, and culturally we have a difficulty of staring and being stared at.”

Ifs Looks Eye Attitude Practice Photography Difficulty Critical Staring Uncomfortable

Author:Pedro Meyer

“[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

“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

“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

“I had my young eyes opened by the impersonal blood and guts of news photography. I was running the gamut every low man on the totem pole runs - country clubs to mass murder.”

Men Country Eye Running Young Blood Photography News Mass Lows Murder Clubs Guts Totems Country Clubs

Author:Burk Uzzle

“That's one of the wonderful things about the whole process of photography - eye contact can be very revealing.”

Whole Eye Process Wonderful Photography Contact Wonderful Things Revealing Eye Contact

Author:Derek Ridgers

“I think what it was with the war photography was the concerned eye, the desire to document these situations to show the world the horrors of war. It inspired me to document prostitution; inspired me to document homelessness in America. We are the richest country in the world, yet we have people suffering, so it helped me to look at things in that manner.”

People Thinking World Looks War Country Shows Eye America Desire Suffering Situation Horror Photography Concerned Inspired Documents Homelessness Prostitution Horror Of War

Author:Jamel Shabazz

“I seem to walk in the world as two people. The normal everyday-me is as preoccupied, unobservant and oblivious to visual clues as I ever was. Then there is the photographer-me, the one who has a camera in hand and a specific project in mind, and then the world suddenly jumps to life with potential pictures, as if a switch had been thrown in my brain and a different person is looking out of the same eyes.”

People Ifs World Mind Persons Two Different Hands Seems Eye Walks Brain Normal Projects Photography Cameras Everyday Photographer Visuals Thrown Clue Oblivious

Author:Bill Jay

“'Ornithologists concluded that migratory birds take hundreds of naps as they fly; they also practice unilateral eye closure, in which one eye closes, thereby permitting half the brain to sleep.' Is this what happens when photographers close one eye to look through a viewfinder? If so, they might be operating with only half a brain. Perhaps that explains.”

Ifs Looks Might Happens Eye Sleep Brain Half Practice Photography Bird Photographer Naps Closure Migratory Birds

Author:Bill Jay

“Photography opens your eyes a little wider to the world around you.”

World Littles Eye Photography

Author:Bill Jay

“My passion is to open people's eyes to the sea using the power of photography as a universal language to convince the unconvinced among us that the oceans are fragile and finite.”

People Eye Passion Language Sea Ocean Photography Universal Convince Fragile Finite My Passion Universal Language

Author:David Doubilet

“I do photography and I studied film at school. So I've always really enjoyed that and I've got an eye for camera angles I guess. I've never taken that into filming wildlife.”

Eye School Film Taken Photography Cameras Enjoyed Angle Wildlife Camera Angles

Author:Asa Butterfield

“I'm a big fan of Steven Seagal early films. On Deadly Ground, I'll watch that anytime it comes on. That's one of the reasons I wanted to work with him. I remember that he's got a great eye for photography. There was a lot that I learned from that.”

Reason Eye Remember Film Photography

Author:Michael Jai White

“In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.”

Ifs Mind Feelings Eye Chance Ability Practice Particular Photography Sight Photograph Print Intuitive Good Chance

Author:Ansel Adams

“When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.”

Thinking Mind Eye Ready Photography Built Photograph True Meaning

Author:Ansel Adams

“While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”

“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

Book:A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Ultimately — or at the limit — in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes. 'The necessary condition for an image is sight,'Janouch told Kafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: 'We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.”

Way Mind Wells Looks Stories Eye Order Conditions Limits Photography Sight Photograph

Author:Roland Barthes

“Art is what we call...the thing an artist does. It's not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the ...eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist.”

Humans Persons Doe Art Made Soul Matter Eye Artist Voice Doubt Wall Photography Art Is Photographer Oil Resistance Mediums Made It What Matters Ignored Beholder Eye Of The Beholder

Author:Seth Godin

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”

Should Looks Eye Photography Photographer Photograph Insightful Black And White Photography By Photographers Inspirational Photography Photo Shoots Inspiring Photography Street Photography Black And White Photography

Book:Robert Frank

Source: Robert Frank

“The important thing is not the camera but the eye.”

Inspirational Important Eye Photography Cameras Important Things Photograph Photography By Photographers Great Photography Camera And Photography Film Photography Photography And Film

Author:Alfred Eisenstaedt

“I began to realize that the camera sees the world differently than the human eye and that sometimes those differences can make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed.”

World Humans Sometimes Eye Realizing Differences Powerful Photography Cameras Photograph Human Eyes Camera And Photography

Author:Galen Rowell

“The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?”

Use Eye Photography Cameras Why Not

Book:The daybooks of Edward Weston

Source: The daybooks of Edward Weston

“My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, or the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.”

May Ideas Eye My Own Photography Cameras

Author:Edward Weston

“Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.”

Knows Moments Eye Courses Realizing Decision Photography Facility Snaps

Author:Ben Shahn

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