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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

“Some of my pictures are poem-like in the sense that they are very condensed, haiku-lik. There are others that, if they were poetry, would be more like Ezra Pound. There is a lot of information in most of my pictures, but not the kind of information you see in documentary photography. There is emotional information in my photographs.”

Ifs Kind Would Be Information Emotional Photography Photographer Photograph Pounds Documentaries Haiku Documentary Photography

Author:Sally Mann

“The idea that the snapshot would be thought of as a cult or movement is very tiresome to me and, I'm sure, confusing to others. It's a swell word I've always liked. It probably came about because it describes a basic fact of photography. In a snap, or small portion of time, all that the camera can consume in breadth and bite and light is rendered in astonishing detail: all the leaves on a tree, as well as the tree itself and all its surroundings.”

Wells Ideas Facts Light Would Be Tree Movement Photography Cameras Details Bites Portions Cult Confusing Surroundings Astonishing Snaps Breadth Snapshots Tiresome

Author:Lee Friedlander

“In 1979, I received a phone call from Ansel Adams asking me if I would be willing to consider coming to work for him. I was teaching photography in Southern California at that point.”

Ifs Would Be Teaching Willing Photography Asking Photographer Phones California Southern Phone Calls Southern California

Author:John Sexton

“You couldn't make a cheap drama. That would be too low-budget. Drama has to have good photography and well-known actors.”

Wells Would Be Actors Known Drama Photography Lows Budgets Well Known Good Photography

Author:Bruce Campbell

“It's entirely ridiculous and hopeless to try to compete with somebody who made such a huge contribution to photography... I knew when I went into photography that I would be compared to my mother. I thought to myself, what can I do about that?”

Trying Made Would Be Mother Huge Photography Ridiculous Contribution Hopeless

Author:Amy Arbus

“I wanted not to make photographs that would be art, but art that would be photography.”

Art Would Be Wanted Photography Photograph

Author:Jean-Marc Bustamante

“[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

“I don't like the discussions about whether photography is an art. Even though I think that if it would be just a craft I would not have stayed with it all my life.”

Ifs Thinking Art Would Be Photography Crafts Discussion

Author:Josef Sudek

“There are many reasons why photography does not attract the social and cultural attention it deserves. I would add one more which has received scant attention: it does not make a lot of noise. ... Perhaps photography would be more appreciated if camera shutters fired with the sound of a .357 Magnum.”

Ifs Doe Reason Would Be Social Sound Attention Photography Deserve Cameras Add Noise Reason Why Appreciated Shutters

Author:Bill Jay

“In the last workshop I taught, a woman flew in from Thailand. She's a medical doctor in Bangkok. I asked her in her one-on-one session where she wanted photography to be in her life.Did she want a second career? Was it about earning money? Or was it art? And she said "None of those. I want photography to be serious in my life." It would be like someone wanting music, like piano playing, to be a richer, deeper, and maybe even harder experience.”

“If the quality of professional materials continues to erode or even dries up, then many of us silver photographers would have to follow the digital tidal wave. It certainly wouldn't be the end of the world, but in my opinion, having no silver material available would be a huge loss to photography.”

Ifs World Ends Would Be Loss Quality Opinion Materials Huge Photography Photographer Wave Available Digital Silver End Of The World Erode Tidal Waves

Author:Michael Kenna

“I can appreciate the idea that with e-books more people would publish, the work would be easier to disseminate, and that it could even be interactive. Being a lover of photography, I especially like the idea that you could include lots of pictures - full-color pictures - with your writing. That to me is exciting! We'll all have to stay tuned to see what develops.”

People Writing I Can Book Ideas Would Be Color Lovers Easier Photography Appreciate Exciting Publish Interactive

Author:Elaine Equi

“There are no rules and regulations for perfect composition. If there were we would be able to put all the information into a computer and would come out with a masterpiece. We know that's impossible. You have to compose by the seat of your pants.”

Ifs Knows Would Be Able Perfect Impossible Information Computer Photography Photographer Seats Pants Regulation Composition Masterpiece Rules And Regulations

Author:Arnold Newman

“Photography suits the temper of this age - of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately.”

Mind Ideas Body Would Be Age Perfect Painting Photography Workers Active Mediums Suits Temper Imagery Mind And Body Sculpting

Author:Edward Weston

“We regard the photograph, the picture on our wall, as the object itself (the man, landscape, and so on) depicted there. This need not have been so. We could easily imagine people who did not have this relation to such pictures. Who, for example, would be repelled by photographs, because a face without color and even perhaps a face in reduced proportions struck them as inhuman.”

People Men Needs Has Beens Would Be Faces Imagine Example Objects Color Wall Photography Relation Regard Photograph Landscape Proportion Inhuman

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“What's really important is to simplify. The work of most photographers would be improved immensely if they could do one thing: get rid of the extraneous. If you strive for simplicity, you are more likely to reach the viewer.”

Ifs Important Would Be One Thing Photography Strive Photographer Simplicity Viewers Simplify

Author:William Albert Allard

“I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term - meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching - there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.”

“If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.”

People Ifs Want Kind Mean Hard Stories Would Be House Attention Crazy Photography Paid Cameras Photographer Curious Reasonable Plus License Talk To Me Guarded Mean People

Author:Diane Arbus

“I have always thought that if I could turn back the pages of history and photograph one man, my choice would be Moses.”

Ifs Men Would Be Turns Choices Photography Pages Photographer Photograph If I Could One Man Moses

Book:Portrait of Myself

Source: Portrait of Myself

“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

“It's nothing but a matter of seeing, thinking, and interest. That's what makes a good photograph. And then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture. The wrong light, the wrong background, time and so on. Just don't do it, not matter how beautiful the subject is.”

Thinking Matter Light Would Be Beautiful Interest Seeing Subjects Photography Photographer Photograph Backgrounds Rejecting

Author:Andreas Feininger

“While a painting, even one that meets photographic standards of resemblance, is never more than the stating of an interpretation, a photograph is never less than the registering of an emanation (light waves reflected by objects) — a material vestige of its subject in a way that no painting can be.”

Way Light Would Be Subjects Objects Painting Materials Photography Standards Crosses Photograph Wave Interpretation Nails Resemblance Resemblance Is Light Waves

Author:Susan Sontag

“Photographers should make three or four prints from one negative and then crop them differently. When I was art director at Harper's Bazaar and at several agencies as a consultant, young photographers would bring me their portfolios and all the prints would be in the same standard proportions, either for the Leica or the Rolleiflex. Many times, by limiting themselves in this way, they missed the true potentialities of their photographs.”