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Photography Quotes

Browse 3249 quotes about Photography.

Photography Quotes

“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

“I did all the stuff that people do - film, performance, photography, pictures and words, words and pictures. In retrospect, I was trying to find some way to put things - meaning images and forms - together that highlighted some idea of what was underneath the surface of an image, what determined how something was seen.”

People Way Trying Ideas Together Film Form Stuff Photography Performances Determined Surface Retrospect Pictures And Words

Author:David Salle

“Documentary photography is becoming more illustrative as people become more familiar with photography’s limitations and vulnerabilities. Reality has always been interpreted through layers of manipulation, abstraction, and intervention. But now, it is very much on the surface. I like this honesty about its dishonesty. Every photograph has many truths and none. Photographs are ambiguous, no matter how seemingly scientific they appear to be. They are always subject to an uncontrollable context. This is a tired statement, but worth repeating.”

“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.”

“Whether it is photography, assemblage art or filmmaking, my work is to see beneath the surface.”

Art Photography Surface Filmmaking Beneath The Surface Assemblage

Author:Christophe Agou

“I find the surface of a photograph a thing of beauty in and of itself, and it is this surface that makes a photograph unique relative to other two-dimensional media.”

Two Media Photography Unique Photographer Photograph Surface Relative

Author:John Sexton

“Photography sees surfaces, it doesn't see space. We see space but the camera doesn't.”

Space Photography Cameras Surface

Author:David Hockney

“[X-ray's] accidental discovery in the late 1800s fits seamlessly into modernity's fascination with, and belief in, the power of technological transparency: the desire to domesticate time (cinema), to preserve and capture the surface of the fleeting (photography), to see inside (x-ray).”

Desire Belief Fit Late Photography Discovery Surface Preserves Cinema Capture Rays Technological Fleeting Fascination Transparency Modernity

Author:Walead Beshty

“Photography, too, reduces the world to strips and rectangles; photographers scrutinize the surfaces of reality in hope of unlocking the potential for significance that is latent within them.”

World Reality Photography Photographer Surface Significance Latent Unlocking Scrutinize Rectangles

Book:Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews

Source: Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews

“Photography's about the surface, what's happening at the top of the sea. Literature's about all the stuff below.”

Literature Stuff Sea Photography Happenings Surface

Author:Max Pam

“I believe that photography can only reproduce the surface of things. The same applies to a portrait. I take photographs of people the same way I would take photographs of a plaster bust.”

People Way Believe I Believe Photography Photograph Surface Portraits Plasters

Author:Thomas Ruff

“To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.”

Humanity Quality Records Photography All Things Photograph Surface Latent

Book:Ansel Adams: photographs

Source: Ansel Adams: photographs

“Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience.”

Thinking Way Space Magic Painting Photography Surface Mediums Flats Museums Life Experience Dirt Another Way Transcendence Make You Think

Author:Chuck Close

“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

“In a photograph, if I am able to evoke not alone a feeling of the reality of the surface physical world but also a feeling of the reality of existence that lies mysteriously and invisibly beneath its surface, I feel I have succeeded. At their best, photographs as symbols not only serve to help illuminate some of the darkness of the unknown, they also serve to lessen the fears that too often accompany the journeys from the known to the unknown.”

Ifs World Feels Helping Feelings Reality Able Lying Existence Known Darkness Journey Photography Photographer Photograph Surface Symbols Not Alone Evoke Accompany

Author:Wynn Bullock

“I seek what lies beneath surface beauty. What interests me are intimate human complexities - the darkness as well as the light. I cannot will this kind of transcendent communication into existence. I have to be open and truly present, and if I am lucky, grace descends. My best photographs are an honest collaboration, and when the viewer also connects, I feel the circle is complete.”