Photography famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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Photographs are of course about their makers, and are to be read for what they disclose in that regard no less than for what they reveal of the world as their makers comprehend, invent, and describe it.
-- A. D. Coleman -
Photography has the power to undo your assumptions about the world.
-- Aaron Huey -
Has it led you to the conclusion that photography is an art ? Or it is simply a means of recording ? "I'm glad you asked that. I've been wanting to say this for years. Is cooking an art ? Is talking an art ? Is even painting an art ? It is artfulness that makes art, not the medium itself. Of course photography is an art - when it is in the hands of artists."
-- Aaron Scharf -
How aware were photographers in the past of other visual arts? "No photographer of any distinction at all could approach his work without some awareness of what was going on in other visual media, and for that matter neither the painter nor the draughtsman could ignore photography."
-- Aaron Scharf -
The traditional difficulty of balancing the mechanical with the imaginative schools of photography still operates. In schools of photography meaningful art education is often lacking and on the strength of their technical ability alone students, deprived of a richer artistic training, are sent forth inculcated with the belief that they are creative photographers and artists. It is yet a fact that today, as in the past, the most inspiring and provocative works in photography come as much (and probably more) from those who are in the first place artists.
-- Aaron Scharf -
Only recently serious research into the relationship between photography and art has taken place. Why has it been so long in coming ? In some respects historical research is analogous with that of science. The bringing to light of factual material and the development of ideas is to a large extent cumulative. But when artists themselves were, from about 1910, beginning to tear down the bastions protecting Art in its ivory tower, questioning the idea of Art with a capital 'A', photography was inevitably to assume a new stature both in the eyes of artists and the public, too.
-- Aaron Scharf -
We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect... but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.
-- Aaron Siskind -
I may be wrong, but the essential illustrative nature of most documentary photography, and the worship of the object per se, in our best nature photography, is not enough to satisfy the man of today, compounded as he is of Christ, Freud, and Marx.
-- Aaron Siskind -
Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.
-- Aaron Siskind -
Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.
-- Aaron Siskind -
To me documentary photography means making a picture so that the viewer doesn’t think about the man who made the picture. At its esthetic core is very old tradition in art: naturalism. And its purpose is to document all facets of social relationships.
-- Aaron Siskind -
As the language or vocabulary of photography has been extended, the emphasis of meaning has shifted, shifted from what the world looks like to what we feel about the world and what we want the world to mean.
-- Aaron Siskind -
In any art, you don't know in advance what you want to say - it's revealed to you as you say it. That's the difference between art and illustration.
-- Aaron Siskind -
Producing a photographic document involves preparation in excess. There is first the examination of the idea of the project. Then the visits to the scene, the casual conversations, and more formal interviews - talking, and listening, and looking, looking. ... And finally, the pictures themselves, each one planned, talked, taken and examined in terms of the whole.
-- Aaron Siskind -
The business of making a photograph may be said in simple terms to consist of three elements: the objective world (whose permanent condition is change and disorder), the sheet of paper on which the picture will be realized, and the experience which brings them together.
-- Aaron Siskind -
What is the subject matter of this apparently very personal world? It has been suggested that these shapes and images are underworld characters, the inhabitants of the vast common realm of memories that have gone down below the level of conscious control. It may be they are. The degree of emotional involvement and the amount of free association with the material being photographed would point in that direction.
-- Aaron Siskind -
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.
-- Aaron Siskind -
The only nature I'm interested in is my own nature.
-- Aaron Siskind -
However, I must stress that my own interest is immediate and in the picture. What I am conscious of and what I feel is the picture I am making, the relation of that picture to others I have made and, more generally, its relation to others I have experienced.
-- Aaron Siskind -
When I make a photograph I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order (unlike the world of events and actions whose permanent condition is change and disorder).
-- Aaron Siskind -
Patience is the essence of clicking great Photographs!!
-- Abhijeet Sawant -
There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I was attracted to photography because it was technical, full of gadgets, and I was obsessed with science. But at some point around fifteen or sixteen, I had a sense that photography could provide a bridge from the world of science to the world of art, or image. Photography was a means of crossing into a new place I didn't know.
-- Adam Fuss -
The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself
-- Ai Weiwei -
Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.
-- Alain de Botton -
It doesn't matter if you're photographing a porter in a market in Marrakech or you're photographing the king of Morroco. You have the same sympathetic approach to everybody. You be nice to everybody, basically.
-- Albert Watson -
The beauty of women was the first expression of my photography.
-- Alberto Korda -
Photography's future is infinite and bright. It's growing exponentially, so that's great, but for me as a practitioner, that exponential growth makes it even more problematic. And so for me, it's got me more engaged with storytelling.
-- Alec Soth -
Photography is a very lonely medium. There’s a kind of beautiful loneliness in voyeurism. And that’s why I’m a photographer.
-- Alec Soth -
The reason I often say, for me, photography is analogous to poetry, for my kind of work more so than journalism, is because it's so open to interpretation. And I'm very happy having different interpretations of it.
-- Alec Soth -
For me, photography is as much about the way I respond to the subject as it is about the subject itself.
-- Alec Soth -
For me, the act of photography is all about discovery and finding new things.
-- Alec Soth -
This is the same problem I have with digital photography. The potential is always remarkable. But the medium never settles. Each year there is a better camera to buy and new software to download. The user never has time to become comfortable with the tool. Consequently too much of the work is merely about the technology. The HDR and QTVR fads are good examples. Instead of focusing on the subject, users obsess over RAW conversion, Photoshop plug-ins, and on and on. For good work to develop the technology needs to become as stable and functional as a typewriter.
-- Alec Soth -
I always say that photography's closest cousin is poetry because of the way it sparks your imagination and leaves gaps for the viewer to fill in.
-- Alec Soth -
I don't use photographs because photographs don't give me the kind of information I need.
-- Alex Colville -
I really don't have any idea about photography, but I take pictures.
-- Alex Majoli -
I like to use really basic or classic colors, things that people have seen over and over and over again. Primary colors, at least in photography, have been around a lot longer than neon colors and really vibrant purples, hot pinks. Red, blue, yellow, orange - because of Kodachrome and the way that things were produced I think that those colors stood out more than any others.
-- Alex Prager -
With photography, I like to leave a lot of the story, even to myself.
-- Alex Prager -
I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heat of the known awaits just around the corner.
-- Alex Webb -
Photograph because you love doing it, because you absolutely have to do it, because the chief reward is going to be the process of doing it. Other rewards - recognition, financial remuneration - come to so few and are so fleeting...Take photography on as a passion, not a career.
-- Alex Webb -
I'm really interested in photography, like every other human being.
-- Alexa Chung -
I want to take some quite incredible photographs that have never been taken before... pictures which are simple and complex at the same time, which will amaze and overwhelm people ... I must achieve this so that photography can begin to be considered a form of art.
-- Alexander Rodchenko -
Photography has all the rights, and all the merits, necessary for us to turn towards it as the art of our time.
-- Alexander Rodchenko -
Photography has every right and every merit to claim our attention as the art of our age.
-- Alexander Rodchenko -
The personality and style of a photographer usually limits the type of subject with which he deals best. For example Cartier-Bresson is very interested in people and in travel; these things plus his precise feeling for geometrical relationships determine the type of pictures he takes best. What is of value is that a particular photographer sees the subject differently. A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
The photograph is not only a pictorial report; it is also a psychological report. It represents the feelings and point of view of the intelligence behind the camera.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
It is every photographer's responsibility to discover new images and a new personal way of looking at things. If he can do this his pictures will command attention and have surprise quality.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
It is the photographer's decision at the two levels of seeing the picture - when it is shot and when it is chosen and printed that determines his personal style.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
Outstanding past work in photography, and in fact in all the arts, is very important to today's photographers. But it should be used for inspiration and not for imitation. These works should be something to be built upon, not to be repeated.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
If you see something you have seen before, don't click the shutter.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
When I say that a good picture has surprise quality or shock appeal, I do not mean that it is a loud or vulgar picture but, instead, that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
What is of value is that a particular photographer sees the subject differently than I do. A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
It is the unexpected and the surprise quality of a personal vision, rather than the emotion, which make people respond to a photograph.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
Surprise quality can be achieved in many ways. It may be produced by a certain stimulating geometrical relationship between elements in the picture or through the human interest of the situation photographed or by calling our attention to some commonplace but fascinating thing we have never noticed before or it can be achieved by looking at an everyday thing in a new interesting way.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
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.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
When the novice photographer starts taking pictures, he carries his camera about and shoots everything that interests him. There comes a time when he must crystallize his ideas and set off in an particular direction. He must learn that shooting for the sake of shooting is dull and unprofitable.
-- Alexey Brodovitch -
The important thing is not the camera but the eye.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
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.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
I seldom think when I take a picture. My eyes and fingers react - click. But first, it's most important to decide on the angle at which your photograph is to be taken.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
I don’t use an exposure meter. My personal advice is: Spend the money you would put into such an instrument for film. Buy yards of film, miles of it. Buy all the film you can get your hands on. And then experiment with it.That is the only way to be successful in photography. Test, try, experiment, feel your way along. It is the experience, not technique, which counts in camera work first of all. If you get the feel of photography, you can take fifteen pictures while one of your opponents is trying out his exposure meter.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
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 -
With photography, everything is in the eye and these days I feel young photographers are missing the point a bit. People always ask about cameras but it doesn't matter what camera you have. You can have the most modern camera in the world but if you don't have an eye, the camera is worthless. Young people know more about modern cameras and lighting than I do. When I started out in photography I didn't own an exposure meter - I couldn't , they didn't exist! I had to guess.
-- 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 -
My style hasn't changed much in all these sixty years. I still use, most of the time, existing light and try not to push people around. I have to be as much a diplomat as a photographer. People don't often take me seriously because I carry so little equipment and make so little fuss... I never carried a lot of equipment. My motto has always been, "Keep it simple".
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
It's important to understand it's OK to control the subject. If most editorial stories were photographed just as they are, editors would end up throwing most in the waste basket. You have to work hard at making an editorial picture. You need to re-stage things, rearrange things so that they work for the story, with truth and without lying.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
The most important thing... is not clicking the shutter... it is clicking with the subject.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
I don't like to work with assistants. I'm already one too many; the camera alone would be enough.
-- Alfred Eisenstaedt -
In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
Wherever there is light, one can photograph.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
The arts equally have distinct departments, and unless photography has its own possibilities of expression, separate from those of the other arts, it is merely a process, not an art.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
Photography my passion, the search for truth, my obsession.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
I do not object to retouching, dodging or accentuation as long as they do not interfere with the natural qualities of photographic technique.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
The ability to make a truly artistic photograph is not acquired off-hand, but is the result of an artistic instinct coupled with years of labor.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
The fight for photography became my life.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
Before the people at large, and for that matter, the artists themselves, understand what photography really means, as I understand that term, it is essential for them to be taught the real meaning of art.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
Let me here call attention to one of the most universally popular mistakes that have to do with photography - that of classing supposedly excellent work as professional, and using the term amateur to convey the idea of immature productions and to excuse atrociously poor photographs.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
If you can imagine photography in the guise of a woman and you’d ask her what she thought of Stieglitz, she’d say: He always treated me like a gentleman.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
I have all but killed myself for Photography. My passion for it is greater than ever. It's forty years that I have fought its fight... I am not fighting to make a 'name' for myself. Maybe you have some feeling for what the fight is for. It's a world's fight... All that's born of spirit seems mad in these days of materialism run riot.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
I am not a painter, nor an artist. Therefore I can see straight, and that may be my undoing.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
As a matter of fact, nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done, by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons. As the name implies, an amateur is one who works for love.
-- Alfred Stieglitz -
My aim in photography is always to convey a mood and not to impart local information. This is not an easy matter, for the camera if left to its own devices will simply impart local information to the exclusiveness of everything else.
-- Alvin Langdon Coburn -
Photography makes one conscious of beauty everywhere, even in the simplest things, even in what is often considered commonplace or ugly. Yet nothing is really 'ordinary', for every fragment of the world is crowned with wonder and mystery, and a great and surprising beauty.
-- Alvin Langdon Coburn -
It is my hope that photography may fall in line with all the other arts and with her infinite possibilities, do things strange and more fascinating than the most fantastic dreams.
-- Alvin Langdon Coburn -
PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.
-- Andre Bazin -
All the arts are based on the presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence. Photography affects us like a phenomenon in nature, like a flower or a snowflake whose vegetable or earthly origins are an inseparable part of their beauty.
-- Andre Bazin -
For this very reason I refuse all the tricks of the trade and professional virtuosity which could make me betray my career. As soon as I find a subject which interests me, I leave it to the lens to record it truthfully. Look at the reporters and at the amateur photographer! They both have only one goal; to record a memory or a document. And that is pure photography.
-- Andre Kertesz -
If you want to write you should learn the alphabet. You write and write and in the end you hava a beautiful, perfect alphabet. But it isn’t the alphabed that is important. The important thing is what you are writing, what you are expressing. The same thing goes for photography. Photographs can be technically perfect and even beautiful, but they have no expression.
-- Andre Kertesz -
Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph
-- Andre Kertesz -
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.
-- Andreas Feininger -
Realism and superrealism are what I'm after. This world is full of things the eye doesn't see. The camera can see more, and often 10 times better.
-- Andreas Feininger -
With a short lens I can reveal the hidden things near at hand, with a long lens the hidden things far away. The telephoto lens provides a new visual sensation for people: it widens their horizons. And, conversely, the things under our nose invariably look good when blown up really big.
-- Andreas Feininger -
The camera can push the new medium to its limits - and beyond. It is there - in the "beyond" - that the imaginative photographer will compete with the imaginative painter. Painting must return to the natural world from time to time for renewal of the artistic vision. The key sector of renewal of vision today is the new vistas revealed by science. Here photography, which is not only art but science also, stands on the firmest ground.
-- Andreas Feininger
