Quotations About Photography 09 04 13

(Note: I have been unable to find the sources of some of these quotations. If you can provide me with a name to replace the “unknown” following some of these, I’d appreciate it—Todd.) I see something special and show it to the camera. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs. —Sam Abell Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment—this very moment—to stay. —Sam Abell Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me. —Sam Abbel Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past. —Berenice Abbott Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. —Ansel Adams A photograph is usually looked at—seldom looked into. —Ansel Adams Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop. —Ansel Adams When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.

—Ansel Adams No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit. —Ansel Adams There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. —Ansel Adams These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. And they in turn seem to be aware of me. —Ansel Adams Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution. —Ansel Adams Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer, and often the supreme disappointment. —Ansel Adams Notebook. No photographer should be without one! —Ansel Adams There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept. —Ansel Adams You don't take a photograph, you make it.

—Ansel Adams A good photograph is knowing where to stand. —Ansel Adams A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words —Ansel Adams To the complaint, “There are no people in these photographs,” I respond, “There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.” —Ansel Adams 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. —Ansel Adams Some photographers take reality . . . and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation. —Ansel Adams Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art. —Ansel Adams Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communication, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution. —Ansel Adams

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety. —Ansel Adams In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration. —Ansel Adams No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. —Robert Adams The moment you take the leap of understanding to realize you are not photographing a subject but are photographing light is when you have control over the medium. —Alberta I think the best pictures are often on the edges of any situation, I don't find photographing the situation nearly as interesting as photographing the edges. —William Albert Allard My favourite thing is to go where I’ve never been. —Diane Arbus A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know. —Diane Arbus One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed. —Diane Arbus

The camera is a kind of license [to ask people about their lives]. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that’s a reasonable kind of attention to be paid. —Diane Arbus The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking. —Brooks Atkinson I think all art is about control, the encounter between control and uncontrollable. —Richard Avedon All photos are accurate. None of them is the truth. —Richard Avedon My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph. —Richard Avedon If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. —Richard Avedon It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary. —David Bailey Working at the scene of the action, I have adopted Robert Capa's saying . . . But in retrospect I add a corollary: if you're too close to events, you lose perspective. —Micha Bar-Am

The photographic image . . . is a message without a code. —Roland Barthes A photograph is always invisible; it is not it that we see. —Roland Barthes Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption. —André Bazin Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. —Cecil Beaton Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure. —Tony Benn The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget. —John Berger Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does. —John Berger All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this—as in other ways— they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers.

Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it. —John Berger The camera can photograph thought. It's better than a paragraph of sweet polemic. —Dirk Bogarde Life wanted faces that would express what we wanted to tell. Not just the unusual or striking face, but the face that would speak out the message from the printed page. I am always looking for some typical person or face that will tie the picture essay together in a human way. —Margaret Bourke-White Chance is always there. We all use it. The difference is a poor photographer meets chance one out of a hundred times and a good photographer meets chance all the time. —Brassai I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting. —Harry Callahan Photography has the capacity to provide images of man and his environment that are both works of art and moments in history. —Cornell Capa If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. —Robert Capa

Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks. —Henri Cartier-Bresson Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. —Henri Cartier-Bresson Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst. —Henri Cartier-Bresson The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality. —Henri Cartier Bresson We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. —Henri Cartier-Bresson I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff—being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens. —Henri Cartier-Bresson The era of popular photography which began with the introduction of the first Kodak camera in 1888 is that of the anonymous photograph. . . . Both sitter and photographer may be no longer identifiable. Yet . . . these primitive pictures are of

great historic significance. . . . Through them we have a detailed picture of everyday life of a kind never previously available. —Brian Coe The camera is a killing chamber, which speeds up the time it claims to be conserving. Like coffins exhumed and prized open, the photographs put on show what we were and what we will be again. —Peter Conrad Which of the photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow. —Imogen Cunningham Most of my photographs are compassionate, gentle, and personal. They . . . tend not to preach. And they tend not to pose as art. —Bruce Davidson She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes. —Frank Deford A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there—even if you put them end to end, they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds, snatched from eternity. —Robert Doisneau The magic of photography is metaphysical. What you see in the photograph isn't what you saw at the time. The real skill of photography is organized visual lying. —Terence Donovan We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, any one of which might say something significant. —Alfred Eisenstaedt

I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer. —Alfred Eisenstaedt When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear. —Alfred Eisenstaedt It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter —Alfred Eisenstaedt I don't like to work with assistants. I'm already one too many; the camera alone would be enough. —Alfred Eisenstaedt I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I shall really have become a photographer. —Alfred Eisenstaedt Now very often events are set up for photographers. . . . The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist. —Elliott Erwitt To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. . . . I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. —Elliott Erwitt You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.

—Elliott Erwitt To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place . . . I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. —Elliott Erwitt The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth. —Harold Evans It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long. —Walker Evans Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. —Walker Evans If you want to make good photographs, a camera has to be second nature to you. Devoting too much attention to technical decisions can interfere with your creative processes —Robert Farber A technically perfect photograph can be the world’s most boring picture. —Andreas Feininger Human vision is untrustworthy, subjective and selective. Camera vision is total and non–objective. —Andreas Feininger

When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you are on the right track. —Arthur Fellig Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. —Robert Frank I always say that I don't want to be sentimental, that the photographs shouldn't be sentimental, and yet, I am conscious of my sentimentality. —Robert Frank I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love. —Robert Frank It is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph. —Robert Frank My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished. —Robert Frank There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough—there has to be vision, and the two together can make a good photograph. —Robert Frank

You do your work as a photographer and everything becomes past. Words are more like thoughts; the photographer's picture is always surrounded by a kind of romantic glamour—no matter what you do, and how you twist it. —Robert Frank If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. —Anne Geddes Photography is the only “language” understood in all parts of the world, and bridging all nations and cultures, it links the family of man [and] allows us to share in the hopes and despair of others. —Helmut Gernsheim The picture may tell different things to different people—but it will tell. This may be a yardstick for the quality of your photograph. —Tim Gidal Photography is truth. —Jean-Luc Godard I have a simple rule and that is to spend as much time in the location as possible. I like photographs which leave something to the imagination. —Fay Godwin Look at lots of exhibitions and books, and don't get hung up on cameras and technical things. Photography is about images. —Fay Godwin The viewer must bring their own view to a photograph. —Fay Godwin

You can't expect to take a definitive image in half an hour. It takes days, often years. And in fact I don't believe there is such a thing as a definitive picture of something. The land is a living, breathing thing and light changes its character every second of every day. That's why I love it so much. —Fay Godwin Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don’t see. —Emmet Gowin When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls! —Ted Grant Always shoot from the shadow side. —Ted Grant Do noble motives and the desire to correct social wrongs justify the one-way intrusion into, and exposure of the lives of the poor and helpless by film-makers who hope to use the image of their misery to tweak the conscience of the well-off? —Larry Gross There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are. —Ernst Haas Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'. —Ernst Haas

A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it? —Ernst Haas The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE. —Ernst Haas Most photographs are low-context. . . . A good photograph is one in which the photographer has increased the context. —Edward T. Hall A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, be the testimony of how this person looked and what kind of human being he was. —Philippe Halsman I want my photographs to show people what they could never see in “real life”. Otherwise, what’s the point? —Todd Hanson Everywhere I look and most of the time I look, I see photographs. —Bert Hardy Just as a fisherman cannot catch fish unless his line is in the water, a wildlife photographer cannot shoot great wildlife images unless he or she is out there with camera in hand and the knowledge of what to do when the “magnificent moment” occurs. —George H. Harrison There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph. —Robert Heinecken

Life is like a good black and white photograph, there's black, there's white, and lots of shades in between. —Karl Heiner If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug a camera. —Lewis Hine I've finally figured out what's wrong with photography. It's a one-eyed man looking through a little 'ole. Now, how much reality can there be in that? —David Hockney Photography concentrates one's eye on the superficial. For that reason it obscures the hidden life which glimmers through the outlines of things like a play of light and shade. One can't catch that even with the sharpest lens. —Franz Kafka Far from being objective, the camera shows us a narrowly selected, highly personal and—of necessity—edited version of objects and events. —John Stuart Katz It's weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don't even amount to a couple of hours. —James Lalropui Keivom The camera is my tool. Through it I give a reason to everything around me. —André Kertész Everybody can look, but they don't necessarily see. I never calculate or consider; I see a situation and I know that it's right, even if I have to go back to get the proper lighting. —Andre Kertesz

The pictures you want tomorrow, you have to take today. —Kodak advertisement Forget the camera, forget the lens, forget all of that. With any four-dollar camera, you can capture the best picture. —Alberto Korda The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. —Dorothea Lange 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. —Dorothea Lange Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. —Dorothea Lange I realize more and more what it takes to be a really good photographer. You go in over your head, not just up to your neck. —Dorothea Lange One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. —Dorothea Lange 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. —Jacques-Henri Lartigue Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true.

—Jacques-Henri Lartigue A photograph is memory in the raw. —Carrie Latet When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I'd like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph. —Annie Leibovitz Photographers never have much incentive to show the world as it is. —William Leith The subtlest and most pervasive of all influences are those which create and maintain the repertory of stereotypes. We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those perceptions, unless education had made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception. —Lippmann A Ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason alone. I don't think this can be true for photography. Unless there is something a little incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. We won't take an interest in it. —John Loengard Perishability in a photograph is important in a picture. If a photograph looks perishable we say, “Gee, I'm glad I have that moment”. —John Loengard The camera is the instrument that brings the inner passion and the outward event into harmony with one another. —Edward Lucie-Smith

If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it. —Jay Maisel If you scratch a great photograph, you find two things; a painting and a photograph. —Janet Malcolm The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer. —Robert Mapplethorpe I just think it’s important to be direct and honest with people about why you’re photographing them and what you’re doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul. —Mary Ellen Mark I think you have to have a real point of view that's your own. You have to tell it your way. And, I think that it's a mistake to shoot for a specific magazine's point of view because it's never going to be as good. You have to shoot for yourself and photograph the way you believe it. —Mary Ellen Mark Rarely has reality needed so much to be imagined. —Chris Marker We try to grab pieces of our lives as they speed past us. Photographs freeze those pieces and help us remember how we were. We don't know these lost people but if you look around, you'll find someone just like them. —Gene McSweeney I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.

—Duane Michals I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways. —Duane Michals Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals Trust that little voice in your head that says, “Wouldn't it be interesting if. . . ?”; and then do it. —Duane Michals Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects. The object is nothing, light is everything. —Leonard Missone Photography, fortunately, to me has not only been a profession but also a contact between people—to understand human nature and record, if possible, the best in each individual. —Nickolas Murray I believe in the photographer's magic—the ability to stir the soul with light and shape and colour. To create grand visual moments out of small and simple things, and to infuse big and complicated subjects with unpretentious elegance. —Amyn Nasser The subject must be thought of in terms of the 20th century, of houses he lives in and places he works, in terms of the kind of light the windows in these places let through and by which we see him every day.

—Arnold Newman 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. —Arnold Newman Visual ideas combined with technology combined with personal interpretation equals photography. Each must hold its own; if it doesn’t, the thing collapses. —Arnold Newman Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world —Arnold Newman It's that I don't like white paper backgrounds. A woman does not live in front of white paper. She lives on the street, in a motor car, in a hotel room. —Helmut Newton I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the photographs when you hold them in your hand. —Helmut Newton You’ll remember a great image for the rest of your life. —Nikon advertisement We take pictures to record our personal vision of the world. —Nikon advertisement

But if you're talking about fine art work, then I think you have to ask yourself some pretty deep questions about why it is you want to take pictures and what it is you want to say. —Leonard Nimoy When someone sees me with a camera that weights almost ten pounds, he assumes immediately that I’m a serious photographer. —Bill Owens The weight of words. The shock of photos. —Paris-Match advertisement You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. —Gordon Parks Nobody takes a picture of something they want to forget. —“Sy Parrish” in One Hour Photo According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word snapshot was originally a hunting term. —“Sy Parrish” in One Hour Photo And if these pictures have anything important to say to future generations, it’s this: I was here. I existed. I was young, I was happy, and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture. —“Sy Parrish” in One Hour Photo All around me all the time are pictures waiting to be discovered. Some of them will last longer than others, but none is permanent. Making a photograph is the act of giving permanence to something transient. It’s making sure the wildflowers will never go away.

—Freeman Patterson God creates, and . . . some human beings discover. Discovery is not accidental. We discover only when we make ourselves ready to receive. —Freeman Patterson Photography is both documentary—recording wildflowers, people, architecture; and interpretive—the same subjects, but capturing personal insights along with outward appearances. —Freeman Patterson A photographer’s subject matter must harmonize with his style in order for the photograph to convey meaning. —Freeman Patterson Failure by the viewer to see what is intended is not always the photographer’s fault. . . . But every artist must grapple with the problem of how his personal understanding potentially will be recognized. —Freeman Patterson Composition should be determined by picture content, rather than be imposed upon it. It’s far better to have reasons for each composition you make, than to have rules which you try to force upon the subject. —Freeman Patterson A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective. —Irving Penn Life is fun. You've got the pictures to prove it. —Pentax advertisement

Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject. —Eliot Porter Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask how, while others of a more curious nature will ask why. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information. —Man Ray I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence. —Man Ray Thirty-six satisfactory exposures on a roll means a photographer is not trying anything new. —Freeman Patterson Maybe because it's entirely an artist's eye, patience and skill that makes an image and not his tools. —Ken Rockwell Your equipment DOES NOT affect the quality of your image. The less time and effort you spend worrying about your equipment, the more time and effort you can spend creating great images. The right equipment just makes it easier, faster, or more convenient for you to get the results you need. —Ken Rockwell No matter how advanced your camera you still need to be responsible for getting it to the right place at the right time and pointing it in the right direction to get the photo you want.

—Ken Rockwell In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated —August Sander Photography . . . offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity. —Schopenhauer The still [photo] must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told. —Cindy Sherman Film is cheaper than opportunity. —Steve Silberman . . . everything looks worse in black and white. —Paul Simon A photographer is an observer; detachment is created by the camera, which is in front of the eye. Yet I still see without my camera. Constantly having a camera in my hand or on my shoulder is not going to make me feel more like a photographer, just less of a person. I have missed countless possible shots by not having a camera on hand, but what I have seen stays in my memory and will eventually show up in my photographs of the future. —Bill Smith Hardening of the categories causes art disease. —W. Eugene Smith Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness —W. Eugene Smith

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. —Susan Sontag Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures. —Susan Sontag It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph—only less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious ones. —Susan Sontag In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it. —Susan Sontag The most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads—as an anthology of images. —Susan Sontag I genuinely believe photography to be at it's most potent when underscored by truth. To contrive is to control, and frankly I'm more interested in observation than direction. Riding the ebb and flow of [the] streets, approaching the next corner afresh, never quite knowing what may present itself in the adjoining street. That's the random beauty of street photography. Control has to be a stultifying, creative brake. The magic, emotion-charged moments are, in my experience, invariably captured using an almost sub-conscious process; they must never be orchestrated and can rarely be dogmatically collated. —Andrew Stark

The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself. —Edward Steichen No photographer is as good as the simplest camera. —Edward Steichen Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man. —Edward Steichen The use of the term art medium is, to say the least, misleading, for it is the artist that creates a work of art not the medium. It is the artist in photography that gives form to content by a distillation of ideas, thought, experience, insight and understanding. —Edward Steichen I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything. —John Steinbeck I shutter to think how many people are underexposed and lacking depth in this field. —Rick Steves It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness. —Paul Strand Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. —Paul Strand

Like chess, or writing, [photography] is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite. —John Szarkowski The question is not what you look at but what you see! —Henry David Thoureau As I progressed further with my project, it became obvious that it was really unimportant where I chose to photograph. The particular place simply provided an excuse to produce work . . . you can only see what you are ready to see—what mirrors your mind at that particular time. —George Tice A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever. —Mark Twain Ultimately, my hope is to amaze myself. The anticipation of discovering new possibilities becomes my greatest joy. —Jerry Uelsmann The camera captures light, our minds capture images. —Unknown Of what use are lens and light to those who lack in mind and sight? —Unknown One photo out of focus is a mistake, ten photos out of focus are an experimentation, one hundred photo out of focus are a style. —Unknown

A picture is worth a thousand words; a slide show is both. —Unknown The enemy of photography is the convention, the fixed rules of “how to do”. The salvation of photography comes from the experiment. —Unknown Photography teaches that how well you see has nothing to do with how well you see. —Unknown It's not the camera, but who's behind the camera. —Unknown Putting the camera in their faces is always the hardest thing. But you just have to do it. —Unknown What we can easily see is only a small percentage of what is possible. Imagination is having the vision to see what is just below the surface; to picture that which is essential, but invisible to the eye. —Unknown When people ask what equipment I use, I tell them, “My eyes”. —Unknown If you are just shooting the passing scene people don't care. Grab shots tend to look like a sneak took them. Eye contact makes all the difference in a good image. You are the exploiter—it isn't called taking pictures for nothing. —Unknown

What is the most important element of photojournalism: Light? Moment? Composition? You are wrong—it's magic. —Unknown I've noticed in my photography that I do a lot better when I'm on vacation. I'm more relaxed and true to my own senses. I really think that's the only route to pure happiness. Letting go of rules. —Unknown I enjoy photography, that's why I do it. If you are taking pictures you are not enjoying, don't take them. If you are stuck behind the camera and would rather stop taking pictures and play; go play. —Unknown A tear contains an ocean. A photographer is aware of the tiny moments in a person's life that reveal greater truths. —Unknown Through photojournalism you learn that all persons are teachers. —Unknown Some photographs make a statement; others ask a question. Some people like the obvious; others like ambiguity. Both types of images and both types of people are correct, just different. —Unknown There are three phases to awareness: to look, to see, and to perceive. A camera looks. A mind sees. A heart perceives. —Unknown T'isn't the camera at all, 'tis the fella behind the camera.

—Unknown Photographers see the world in only fractions of a second. —Unknown A great photo happens when a photographer sees a situation unfolding in front of them that evokes an emotion that the photographer feels deep down, in the middle of their chest. And in a split second, they . . . release the shutter. The film is then processed, scanned, laid out on a page, printed on a press, driven across town to the newspaper carrier who throws it on some guy's porch, who then opens the newspaper and looks down at that photo. . . and if that guy gets the same feeling deep down in the middle of his chest that the photographer did when they viewed the situation in the first place, they have made a great photo. —Unknown The type of camera you use for photography makes no difference. A loving, open heart makes a photograph, not a camera. —Unknown The only Bad Light is the abscence of light altogether. —Unknown Photography is way to tell others how you feel about what you see. —Unknown A good photograph will make an uncommonly good image of common subjects. —Unknown A photograph must say: Here is what these people are like now. —Unknown

A photograph is worth a thousand words—but which thousand words? —Unknown If you don't take the time to look, you'll never manage to see anything. —Unknown After a few years, a photograph becomes the illusion of a moment in time. —Unknown When one picks up one’s camera and freezes a moment in time, we all get a glimpse of one’s soul. —Unknown Photography is one of the most universal languages around, and you do not have to say a word. —Unknown Never take photographic advice from someone who tells you that there is only one way to do something. —Unknown Good photography speaks through silence. —Unknown Q: How did you get that image? A: F8 and being there. —Unknown [Note: F8 is an all-purpose aperture setting.] I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just isn't that good.

—Unknown A photo no longer tells the truth. It suggests just one possibilty. —Unknown You need not photograph a thing to know it. All you need to do is spend time with your full concentration with the thing, person or emotion. One way is through photography. Another way is by opening your heart. —Unknown It is not enough to be a good photographer. You also need to be a good person who takes pictures. —Unknown A picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand words can’t describe a good picture. —Unknown The thing itself need only exist for one two-fiftieth of a second, the time it takes to take a photograph. It is the photograph which need have the duration since it is the photograph which is printed in newspapers and magazines, sent through the post, broadcast through the air, projected onto walls––not the event itself. —Unknown The camera cannot lie, but it cannot help being selective. —Unknown Photographers are violent people. First they frame you, then they shoot you, then they hang you on the wall. —Unknown

Every time someone tells me how sharp my photos are, I assume that it isn't a very interesting photograph. If it was, they would have more to say. —Unknown The goal is not to change your subjects, but for the subject to change the photographer. —Unknown I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it. And by seeing we also begin to understand ourselves. —Unknown When we care, we will not forget. The picture in our head or the vivid printed picture will remind us. Without care, we would not remember, only see. —Unknown Let your words be few, and your exposures many. —Unknown The still photograph is to moving pictures what poetry is to prose—less comprehensive perhaps, less literal even, yet somehow capable of expressing a deeper truth. —Unknown I find the still image more powerful than the moving picture, because it leaves me alone for a moment with my thoughts. —Unknown If I could have put it into words I would have written it down. But I couldn't, so I took a picture. —Unknown

Our eyes are shooting millions of frames a day. We know we're selective because we can recall only a few images the next day, and even less thereafter. —Unknown The difference between the recorder photographer and the artist photographer is that the artist will, by experience and learning force the camera to paint the imagination, the emotion, the concept and the intent, rather than faithfully and truthfully reproduce an unattractive and unflattering record. —Unknown Do not see with just your eyes. If so, you are simply turning yourself into another machine. See with your heart and not with your eyes. —Unknown A photograph is just a picture if it doesn't say anything. —Unknown A collusion exists also between all photographers present at the same situation: they look at everything except at one another. —Unknown Portraiture is a window to the soul. —Unknown A photograph on its own can't change the world, but it can be a catalyst. —Unknown You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it. —Unknown Buying a Nikon doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner.

—Unknown Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. —Unknown Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur. —Unknown Don’t just show pictures of starving children. That’s not all there is. I saw people struggling to survive and making it. I saw families holding together. I saw kindness and beauty, not just bombing and death. I heard beautiful stories, but that’s not what the media shows us. I want to go back live there again someday. It’s a beautiful country and it has an amazing culture and history. If you are going to tell a story, tell the whole story. —Alek Wek A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. —Eudora Welty Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie . . . so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion. —Edward Weston Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it may be. —Edward Weston Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn't photogenic. —Edward Weston

Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk —Edward Weston No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen. —Minor White I’m always mentally photographing everything as practice. —Minor White Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. —Oscar Wilde I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed. —Garry Winogrand

. . . and one final comment: No one makes less sense than famous photographers. It's a good thing they have chosen a visual medium, as words are not their strong suit. Has anyone ever seen a collection of quotes full of as much useless pomposity as these? —Unknown