Famous Photographers' Quotes

[mitica100]

I read these today in the latest issue of the Arizona Highways. I thought I'd share them with you...

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

“Which of the photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” – Imogen Cunningham

“There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.” – Robert Heinecken

“Now, to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravity before going for a walk.” - Edward Weston

“Film is cheaper than opportunity.” - Steve Silberman

“I find the single most valuable tool in the darkroom is my trash can.” – John Sexton

“I see something special and show it to the camera. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.” – Sam Abell

“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer, and often the supreme disappointment.” - Ansel Adams

“I think all art is about control, the encounter between control and uncontrollable.” – Richard Avedon

“Maybe the judgment of whether something is art or not should come from the viewer and not the doer.” – Alan Babbitt

“Hardening of the categories causes art disease.” - W. Eugene Smith

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” – Lewis Hine

“Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects. The object is nothing, light is everything.” – Leonard Missone

“The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.” – Ansel Adams

“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

 

[DBP]

"The discovery I announce to the public is one of the small number which, by their principles, their results, and the beneficial influence which they exert upon the arts, are counted among the most useful and extraordinary inventions." Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre

"It was during these thoughts that the idea occurred to me... how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and to remain fixed upon the paper" - William Henry Fox Talbot,

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough," - Robert Capa

and of course this http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-136.html one

 

[Bob F.]

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) greeting the introduction of commercial plates and the subsequent demise of wet-plate collodion:

"Somebody Let the rabble in". -


Also, something to which I think we should all aspire:

"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop".


Cheers, Bob.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

“Maybe the judgment of whether something is art or not should come from the viewer and not the doer.” – Alan Babbitt

“Hardening of the categories causes art disease.” - W. Eugene Smith

Best little nuggets I've read all day!

Murray

 

[ben1]

"Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer, and often the supreme disappointment"

i love that one!!! so true ...

 

[eddym]

“Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects. The object is nothing, light is everything.” – Leonard Missone
[/I]

This one is my favorite.

 

[Christopher Walrath]

I once read something to the effect of . . . 'Photography is not only an outlet for our own creativity, it is also an inspiration to help foster that creativity in others.' - unknown

 

[Monophoto]

"When your friends finally realize that you are a true artist, committed to making sensitive and meaningful images, they will ask you to photograph their wedding." - Ted Orland

 

[Valerie]

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Lewis Carroll

I am at a war with the obvious - William Eggleston

You can only photograph what you feel and where you are.
--Claire Yaffa, photographer

 

[JBrunner]

(To a student intern) "Circle of confusion? Oh, that is the area right here around the camera."-Jason Zimmerman

 

[Claire Senft]

I enjoy Ralph Steiner's quote when frustrated by trying to capture highlight glints etc on a bottle of liquor: "Anythng not worth doing at all is not worth doing well."

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

http://todayspictures.slate.com

All Magnum photographers, different each day. There is a quote to the right of the main daily image. I often find them quite interesting, though I have not written down any yet. Today's quote is from Burt Glinn: A great photograph should say everything.

Ciao!

Gordon

 

[Tom Duffy]

I've quoted my favorite here at APUG before,

"Never confuse sharp with good or you'll end up shaving with an ice cream cone and licking a razor." - Bill Pierce

Take care,
Tom

 

[Jim Chinn]

I don't know to many off the top of my head, but I know that the most over used photography quote is the one where Ansel Adams refers to the negative as the score and the print the performance.

 

[dmr]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Weegee's quote ...

"F/16 and be there!"

Or something like that. I've heard it "F/8 and be there" too.

 

[25asa]

"If you make pictures, don't speak, don't write, don't analyze yourself and don't answer any questions." - Robert Doisneau

 

[Chazzy]

I don't think anyone has mentioned yet G. B. Shaw's famous remark that a photographer is like the cod that lays a thousand eggs that one may live. He admitted that this came from his own experience of throwing away most of the pictures he took.

 

[Tony Egan]

"A photographer who does not know how to translate his feelings and ideas into a graphically satisfactory form is bound to produce ineffective photographs, no matter how idealistic, compassionate, sensitive or imaginative he may be. For in order to be considered good, a photograph must not only say something worthwhile, it must say it well." Andreas Feininger

"I've always believed a great photographer should concentrate more on depth of feeling and less on depth of field." Max Dupain

"I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed" Garry Winogrand

"If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug a camera." Lewis Hine

 

[Bill Mitchell]

"There's nothing worth photographing more than 100 yards from the car," Brett Weston.

 

[removed account4]

"why is everything so black, oh the lenscap is still on" anonymous

 

[livemoa]

"There is no such thing as bad light, just misunderstood light" Donald McCullin,

which leads on to my partners least favorite quote "I'll clean the house on the next day the lights bad"

 

[Time Freeze]

Walker Evans to Ben Shahn:

"Look Ben, there's nothing to it. F9 on the shady side of the street. f45 on the sunny side, twentieth of a second. Hold your camera steady!"

 

[severian]

I got vision

" I tell ya, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals"
Butch Cassidy

Little known fact that Butch was quite the photographer in his day

 

[bill schwab]

"Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that shadow, or the light).' As a matter of fact, I almost never wait, that is, unless I can see that the thing will be right in a few minutes. But if I must wait an hour for the shadow to move, or the light to change, or the cow to graze in the other direction, then I put up my camera and go on, knowing that I am likely to find three subjects just as good in the same hour." -Edward Weston

Try PhotoQuotes... There are many many more to be forund there.

Bill

 

[c6h6o3]

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

-Edward Weston, "Pictures on a page : photo-journalism, graphics and picture editing" by Harold Evans, page: 75

"All good art is abstract in its structure."
-Paul Strand