Best 2475 quotes in «photography quotes» category

I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling. (1908)

I believe that the (distorting) mirror which is photography holds an intrinsic, even elemental, relation to writing.

I believe that photography loves banal objects, and I love the life of objects.

I believe that the essence of photography is black and white. Color is but a deviance.

I believe that street photography is central to the issue of photography—that it is purely photographic, whereas the other genres, such as landscape and portrait photography, are a little more applied, more mixed in the with the history of painting and other art forms.

I believe that the medium of photography prevails entirely as an act of faith in the souls of those who love and practice it. And so every photograph becomes another subtle variation on the theme of the medium itself.

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.

I believe that this whole question of some photography being true and some untrue is a non-question. Photography is not objective; it never was objective.

I believe that the source of your inspiration is very important. I sometimes see this problem with photographers, even very good ones, who have drawn too much inspiration from photography and who, over time, have a problem forming their own identity.

I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.

I believe there is no more creative medium than photography to recreate the living world of our time. Photography gladly accepts the challenge because it is at home in its element: namely, realism - real life - the now.

I build a painting by putting little marks together-some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts.

I came to photography with the desire to conquer this machine, the camera, and make it my slave. Instead, I have now a respect for it and all machines as expanders of my awareness.

I can be an artist a posteriori, not a priori. If my pictures tell the story, our story, human story, then in a hundred years, then they can be considered an art reference, but now they are not made as art. I'm a journalist. My life's on the road, my studio is the planet.

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.

I can go into the wilderness and not see anyone for days and experience a kind of space that hasn't changed for tens of thousands of years. Having that experience was necessary to my perception of how photography can look at the changes humanity has brought about in the landscape. My work does become a kind of lament.

I cannot understand why some people try to write a history of photography that is separated from the history of modern art.

I can see today that the same sort of issues lie behind taxidermy and photography. Taxidermy consists in preserving a bird in full flight... In the same way, photography halts and freezes motion and life.

I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.

I can tell you for me it goes on forever. There are some things you can't ever find out. You can't find out in one life either.

I can't say what makes a picture. I can't say. It's mysterious.

I come from a visual background. I used to work in the camera department at Warner Bros. when I was a teenager. I grew up dusting lenses and learning about photography.

I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations.

I consider myself fortunate that photography exists, because otherwise I'd be stuck in the tragedy of ephemeralness that can come with installation art.

I could never figure out why photography and art had separate histories. So I decided to explore both.

I could feel myself changing physically. It was like something dropped out of the sky. Seeing her on the fire escape had given me a certain feeling, and then when I saw the photograph of her, it gave me a similar feeling. And I thought that was an incredibly powerful thing - that a photograph could give you a feeling that was similar to a feeling you had in the physical world. Nobody could've told me that. I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

I could ramble on forever, I just love photography. It's my passion, it drives my family crazy. I live it and breathe it.

I didn't choose photography. Photography chose me.

Ideas and art are the possibility of an answer tomorrow.

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.

I didn't do so well in the academic world, so I think the only way I could express myself was through visual art - anything I could get my hands on, whether it was glassblowing, sculpture, painting, or photography. I always wanted to be a painter. Or a farmer.

I didn't do well in high school, but I took photography, and I loved being able to capture moments.

I didnt know photography would take me to the places that it has taken me

I didn't want to tell the tree or weed what it was. I wanted it to tell me something and through me express its meaning in nature.

Ideally I would like the work to be a hybrid between painting and photography.

Ideas and thoughts collide and sort themselves out in these fruitful collisions.

I did it once, and National Geographic recruited me. I did it primarily out of curiosity. A lot of legendary photographers had worked on that campaign. Ernst Haas had done the early photography, and I knew him. There's a lore in photography about that campaign, and I was curious.

I didn't intend to work on the issue of child marriage, but I felt like it was a topic that is related to a lot of the other issues, like acid attacks, self-immolation, and female genital mutilation. I wanted to continue to drive the conversation, but my overall goal is to protect girls. Photography has a way of addressing the viewer whether they want to deal with it or not, and that's why photography is such a good medium for documenting the issues that girls face.

I didn't want to be criticized for taking low-quality photographs, so I tried to reach the best, highest quality of photography and then to combine this with a conceptual art practice. But thinking back, that was the wrong decision [laughs]. Developing a low-quality aesthetic is a sign of serious fine art-I still see this.

I discovered about 150 dots is the minimum number of dots to make a specific recognizable person. You can make something that looks like a head, with fewer dots, but you won't be able to give much information about who it is.

I discovered photography completely by chance. My wife is an architect; when we were young and living in Paris, she bought a camera to take pictures of buildings. For the first time, I looked through a lens - and photography immediately started to invade my life.

I discovered that this camera was the technical means in photography of communicating what the world looks like in a state of heightened awareness. And it's that awareness of really looking at the everyday world with clear and focused attention that I'm interested in.

I'd like my coffin to be a camera obscura so I can see what's going on outside.

I did photography, painting, and drawing, but I prefer sculpture. I like it because it's very physical.

I discovered that close to half the planet is 'pristine.' We live in towns such as London, Paris or Sao Paulo and have the impression that all the pristine areas are gone, but they are not.

I didn't do well in high school, but I took photography, and I loved being able to capture moments. It led to more and more photography, and fashion was the angle into photography for me. It was incredible to see photographs by Irving Penn or Helmut Newton. I was really intrigued by that, and that's what led me to New York City.

I do have strong convictions and political opinions, but I don't think it's necessary to imbue my photographic work with them. I use photography as a vessel for visual material to flow through, to encourage conversation with the viewer. I try to present a catalyst and invite viewers to tell their own stories.

I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself - for the photograph - without consideration of how it may be used.

I do note that photography, a despised medium to work in, is full of empty phonies and worthless commercial people. That presents quite a challenge to the man who can take delight in being in a very difficult, disdained medium.

I do not object to retouching, dodging or accentuation as long as they do not interfere with the natural qualities of photographic technique.