Best photography & firsts Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I began drawing as a very young child and had a grandfather who experimented with photography, so those things constituted my first exposure to art.”

Firsts Children Art Young Photography Drawing Grandfather Exposure Young Children

Author:Sigmar Polke

“When I first moved from photography to filmmaking, I was worried about how big I had to become. I was one person, or maybe me and an assistant, and I had these small cameras, and maybe a flash.”

Firsts Persons Bigs Photography Cameras Moved Worried Flash Filmmaking Assistants

Author:Lauren Greenfield

“Photography is a unique art that allows people to go back, not only to rediscover themselves but also to get something in print for the first time.”

People Firsts Art Photography Unique First Time Print

Author:David Travis

“Fifty years after we undertook to make the first synthetic polarizers we find them the essential layer in digital liquid-crystal. And thirty four years after we undertook to make the first instant camera and film, our kind of photography has become ubiquitous.”

Years Firsts Kind Film Four Essentials Photography Cameras Instant Thirty Fifty Digital Four Years Layers Crystals Liquid Synthetic

Author:Edwin Land

“A photo is like a map, a way of giving me a foot into a kind of reality I want... I'm not trying to make paintings look like photos. I want to make paintings using photos as a reference, the way painters did when photography was first invented.”

Way Want Giving Trying Firsts Looks Kind Reality Feet Painting Photography Painter Maps

Author:Peter Doig

“Humans have changed the landscape so much, but images of the sea could be shared with primordial people. I just project my imagination on to the viewer, even the first human being. I think first and then imagine some scenes. Then I go out and look for them. Or I re-create these images with my camera. I love photography because photography is the most believable medium. Painting can lie, but photography never lies: that is what people used to believe.”

“The thing that was most interesting to me was getting my first prints back from the printer and realizing photography doesn't end with the click of a button, it starts there. Printing is so exciting.”

Firsts Ends Realizing Interesting Photography Exciting Print Buttons Most Interesting Printing Clicks Printer

Author:Bryan Adams

“With photography a new language has been created. Now for the first time it is possible to express reality by reality. We can look at an impression as long as we wish, we can delve into it and, so to speak, renew past experiences at will.”

Firsts Looks Long Has Beens Reality Past Speak Language Wish Photography First Time Impression Past Experiences

Author:Ernst Haas

“I've been doing photography in one form or another for, oh golly, over seventy years. I don't carry cameras. I used to. For many years I carried cameras wherever I went. Photograph whatever I saw that was of interest. In the last years, I've only used cameras to explore thematic ideas which presented themselves first. And then bring out the cameras to try to explore that idea.”

Trying Years Firsts Ideas Lasts Form Used Interest Saws Photography Cameras Photograph Last Year Seventies Thematic

Author:Leonard Nimoy

“I love photography and first editions. I have that in my genes. My father was an archivist.”

Firsts Father Photography Genes Archivists Photography Love

Author:Winona Ryder

“Photographs help people look at things they may not be able or may not want to look at. Until you can look at something, you can't change it. First you have to look at it, then you have a chance to understand it and can change it.”

People Want Firsts Looks May Helping Able Chance Photography Photograph Can't Change

Author:Lynn Johnston

“Do not settle for easy. Do not settle for that first image. Craft it, work it, and make something more out of it. And finally, don't forget that the biggest joy in photography is making pictures of those things in your own life.”

Firsts Joy Easy Forget Photography Crafts Settling Working It

Author:David Burnett

“In 1990 I did a story with Helena Christensen about a woman who lives in a trailer in the middle of the desert and finds a little crushed UFO with a martian who has survived the crash. She takes him home, and they fall in love. Later he has to meet with his fellow martians who have arrived to rescue him. It's a sad ending. This was my first truly narrative story and apparently the first narrative story in fashion photography.”

Firsts Littles Stories Home Fall Middle Fashion Photography Fellows Falling In Love Desert Narrative Rescue Crash Survived Crushed Ufo Trailers Martians Sad Ending Fashion Photography

Author:Peter Lindbergh

“You don't have to shoot the film in the first couple days of principal photography.”

Firsts Film Couple Photography Principal

Author:Seamus McGarvey

“Photography is the first art wherein the tool does most of the work.”

Firsts Doe Art Photography Tools

Book:More Matter: Essays And Criticism

Source: More Matter: Essays And Criticism

“Photography at first was asked to do nothing but embalm our best smiles for the benefit of our friends and our best clothes for the amusement of posterity. Neither thing lasts, and photography came as a welcome salve to keep those precious, if slightly ridiculous, things a little longer in the world.”

Ifs World Firsts Littles Lasts Benefits Photography Clothes Ridiculous Welcome Amusement Posterity Best Smile Ridiculous Things

Book:Animal Faith and Spiritual Life

Source: Animal Faith and Spiritual Life

“... a fact about photography: we can look at people's faces in photographs with an intensity and intimacy that in life we normally only reserve for extreme emotional states - for a first look at someone we may sleep with, or a last look at someone we love.”

People Firsts Looks May States Facts Lasts Faces Sleep Emotional Photography Photograph Extremes Intimacy Intensity Reserves

Author:Adam Gopnik

“When I first started making photo pieces it wasn't with the idea of a commitment to the medium. I didn't think I would have to become a photographer to make my photographs. I recall that anything could be used as material for art in that era. Photography was just one more thing.”

Thinking Firsts Art Ideas Used Pieces Materials Photography Commitment Photographer Photograph Mediums Eras Just One Recalls

Author:William Wegman

“My first reaction at the very idea of this interview was to refuse to talk about photography. Why dissect and comment a process that is essentially a spontaneous reaction to a surprise?”

Firsts Ideas Process Photography Surprise Refuse Reactions Interviews Comment Spontaneous

Author:Marc Riboud

“All my photographs are about meetings and about coups de foudre - love at first sight. To do that type of photography, one must wipe the canvas clean to prepare for chance encounters, be open and aware to such moments, otherwise it becomes a cliché - already seen and expected.”

Firsts Moments Chance Type Photography Sight Clean Meetings Photograph Expected Encounters Canvas Love At First Sight Wipe Coups Chance Encounters

Author:Edouard Boubat

“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

“Before the first press pictures, the ordinary man would visualize only those events that took place near him, on his street or in his village. Photography opened a window. As the reader's outlook expanded, the world began to shrink.”

Men World Firsts Streets Events Reader Photography Ordinary Window Presses Village Outlook Shrinks Ordinary Man

Author:Gisele Freund

“During photography's first decades, exposure times were quite long... So, similar to the drawings produced with the help of a camera obscura, which depicted reality as static and immobile, early photographs represented the world as stable, eternal, unshakable.”

World Firsts Long Helping Reality Eternal Photography Cameras Photograph Decades Drawing Stable Exposure Static Unshakable Camera Obscura

Book:The Language of New Media

Source: The Language of New Media

“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

“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

“For the first time in the history of photography, we can study the real-time production of snapshot making - globally! (On Flickr and other photosharing websites)”

Firsts Real Study Photography First Time Productions Website Snapshots Flickr History Of Photography

Author:Joachim Schmid

“Poetry is my first love. Photography often fails to look into things. It looks at things. Poetry is so much more truthful.”

Firsts Looks Failing Photography Poetry Is Truthful First Love Photography Love

Author:Larry Towell

“I discovered photography completely by chance. My wife is an architect; when we were young and living in Paris, she bought a camera to take pictures of buildings. For the first time, I looked through a lens - and photography immediately started to invade my life.”

Firsts Young Chance Wife Building Photography First Time Cameras My Wife Paris Architect Lenses

Author:Sebastiao Salgado

“Photography was the first foreign language of my artistic expression.”

Firsts Language Expression Photography Artistic Foreign Language Artistic Expression

Author:Jerzy Kosinski

“When I first came to America there still was Look Magazine and LIFE Magazine, and the photography in those magazines was amazing to look at. They had the best portraits, and their news photography.”

Firsts Looks Stills America Photography News Magazines Portraits

Author:Vilmos Zsigmond

“One of my oldest friends from Kansas, his sister was married to Ben [Folds] and wrote lyrics on his first couple of albums. I got to meet him the first time I saw them in concert at The Bottleneck, a great bar in Lawrence, Kansas. Then, he was the musical guest my first or second week as a writer on SNL. I was like, "I don't know if you remember me?" And he was like, "Oh my god, yeah!" He's a big photography fan, as am I.”

Ifs Knows Firsts Bigs Remember Saws Week Fans Couple Photography Married First Time Yeah Musical Albums Bars Concerts Guests Folds Remember Me Kansas Snl Bottlenecks Oldest Friends

Author:Jason Sudeikis

“If you are intent on drawing or painting on your prints, you must first learn to draw and paint at least as well as you photograph.”

Ifs Firsts Wells Painting Photography Draws Paint Photograph Drawing Print

Author:Bill Jay

“Evolution in action: First, God said, 'Let there be light.' Then, he created two nude models. Now we have photographers.”

Firsts Said Two Light Action Evolution Photography Models Photographer

Author:Bill Jay

“Actually, I didn't study photography at first. I went to school for painting my first year, poetry my second year, graphic design my third and fourth year, and photography my fifth.”

Years Firsts School Study Design Painting Photography Thirds Fourth Fifth Graphic Graphic Design Fourth Year

Author:Ryan McGinley

“I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for myself first and foremost - that is important.”

Trying Firsts Art Important Objects Photography Photographer Photograph

Author:Jacques-Henri Lartigue

“When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself.”

Men Giving Firsts Art Ideas Whole Today Hell Fine Photography Missions Cheese Fine Arts Cheesy Hoot

Author:Edward Steichen

“It is part of the photographer's job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.”

People World Firsts Looks Children Country Jobs Strange Photography First Time Photographer Traveler

Book:Camera in London

Source: Camera in London

“My first thought is always of light.”

Firsts Light Photography

Author:Galen Rowell

“The beauty of women was the first expression of my photography.”

Firsts Expression Photography Women Beauty

Author:Alberto Korda

“It's the first time in the history of the world that creatives are also distributors. And that's very profound if you think that up until the recent history, permission was required for us to be able to share work at any sort of scale. We had to get permission from galleries, from ad agencies or photo editors to be able to have our work out there. And now anybody with access to a computer can show their work in 200 countries around the world.”

“I was given a small camera as a wedding gift from a very dear friend. My first pictures were taken on my honeymoon. As soon as I became familiar with the camera, I was intrigued with the possibilities of expression it offered. It was like a discovery for me.”

Firsts Given Taken Possibility Expression Photography Discovery Cameras Photographer Dear Familiar Intrigued Dear Friend Honeymoon

Author:Aaron Siskind

“The challenge for me has first been to see things as they are, whether a portrait, a city street, or a bouncing ball. In a word, I have tried to be objective. What I mean by objectivity is not the objectivity of a machine, but of a sensible human being with the mystery of personal selection at the heart of it. The second challenge has been to impose order onto the things seen and to supply the visual context and the intellectual framework - that to me is the art of photography.”

“My first priority when taking pictures is to achieve clarity. A good documentary photograph transmits the information of the situation with the utmost fidelity; achieving it means understanding the nuances of lighting and composition, and also remembering to keep the lenses clean and the cameras steady.”

“I almost never set out to photograph a landscape, nor do I think of my camera as a means of recording a mountain or an animal unless I absolutely need a 'record shot'. My first thought is always of light.”

Thinking Needs Firsts Mean Light Artist Animal Records Mountain Photography Shots Cameras Photographer Photograph Landscape

Author:Galen Rowell

“We pass the billboard and I console myself in two ways. First, I know that most photographs taken are a gamble at best. Second and more important: I remind myself to find the pleasure in this moment, a time in which the red sky passes to black, children create unanticipated rhymes, and the stars fall closer to earth.”

Knows Way Firsts Children Two Important Moments Earth Fall Stars Black Pleasure Taken Sky Photography Red Photographer Photograph Rhyme Two Ways Gamble Console Billboards

Author:Laura McPhee

“I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite.”

Firsts Destiny Photography Photographer My Destiny Yosemite

Book:Ansel Adams: in the National Archives

Source: Ansel Adams: in the National Archives

“When photographers get beyond copying the achievements of others, or just repeating their own accidental first successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures. Nobody does. Each photograph that works is a revelation to its supposed creator.”

Knows World Firsts Doe Achievement Photography Photographer Photograph Creator Revelations Copying

Book:Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

Source: Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

“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

“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

“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

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