Best 2475 quotes in «photography quotes» category

There is a terrible truthfulness about photography. The ordinary academician gets hold of a pretty model, paints her as well as he can, calls her Juliet, and puts a nice verse Shakespeare underneath, and the picture is admired beyond measure. The photographer finds the same pretty girl, he dresses her up and photographs her, and calls her Juliet, but somehow it is no good – it is still Miss Wilkins, the model. It is too true to be Juliet. George Bernard Shaw Wilson’s Photographic Magazine, LVI, 1909

there is such an unfortunate irony in photography these days. for as people pursue desires to visit and capture images of unspoiled landscapes. they inadvertently in the process turn these beautiful locations into anything but unspoiled, regardless of ideals of conservation. and more-so, so many ruin natural beauty by exploiting these magical places with their greed and dreams of success, and regrettable egos with overdeveloped look-at-me-syndromes...sadly sometimes, for so many of us, now the only way today to truly protect an unspoiled place is to not share its beautiful photo or location with anyone, anymore

There is the satisfaction of being able to look at the image without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching.

The remarkable photographs by Craig Varjabedian are not only beautiful but also extremely valuable documents of architecture, culture, and lifestyle . . .

There will never be a photograph of the Grand Canyon that can adequately describe its depth, breadth, and true beauty.

The sight of this woman infringing on the privacy of others so aggressively and casually sent revulsion through my entire being. What was she doing? Hunting big game? Were the people in this small village home just a quarry to be stalked, a trophy later to be mounted on the wall? It was one of those moments when I felt ashamed to be linked with this thing we call photography. We photographers “shoot” and “capture”. We may insist that we “make” a photograph, but everyone knows we really take them.

The shutter of the photographer's camera makes that repeated mechanical sound. That unlocking and locking of the doors of light to send momentary images of the present into the light trap of the past.

The temptation is always to think of Las Vegas as a gambling mecca, the ‘Entertainment Capital of the World’. Well, it’s that. But, it’s a lot more than that as well. There are beautiful natural rock formations, rare plants and animals, and even pseudo-alpine regions. Just because you can see for a hundred miles doesn’t mean that there’s nothing there to see, and open desert allows you to see things in a different way. There is nothing to block your view, and nothing to hide behind.

The task of a philosophy of photography is to reflect upon this possibility of freedom - and thus its significance - in a world dominated by apparatuses; to reflect upon the way in which, despite everything, it is possible for human beings to give significance to their lives in the face of the chance necessity of death. Such a philosophy is necessary because it is the only form of revolution left open to us.

The time of the photograph is [always] after. This imprecision accommodates the numerous successions, the end upon seismic end, in a time without time, un[re]countable: still. In this, it is a perfect crime, “l’anéantissement anéanti, la fin… privée d’elle-même.

The world of fine art photography represents not only the photos themselves, but the original expression of the photographers' perceptions.

The truth is that you have to fight your way through brutal, ugly realities in order to find that moment of clarity, that one slant of light or shift in emotion that yields unexpected art. That's just as true for life as it is for crime scene photography.

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. I say its closer to 675 or 700.

Thirty years later, at the end of Huddleston’s career, formal portraits of the dead were no longer fashionable. The very idea was labeled morbid and ghoulish in the determinedly cheerful post-war, post-Depression boom times. Miraculous antibiotics had just been introduced, vaccines protected the young from the diseases that had decimated earlier child populations. Birth and death had been shuttled behind hospital screens to be dealt with by white-gowned professionals. For the first time in human history people could afford the luxury of declaring death to be in bad taste.

They were both smiling so hard, it was surprising the frame could contain the happiness of that moment, surprising that it didn't shatter into a million pieces, floating all over the funeral home like dust.

This book does not try to “document” any particular aspect of Indian life. To me, doing such a thing would seem a pretentious and pseudo-scientific undertaking, especially for someone from the West. The photographs also make no intentional social or political statement. I never say, when discussing my work, that I am “concerned” with anything (another favorite word tossed about, all too much, by young and socially conscious post-modernists).

This prolific and inventive photographer (Edward Steichen) must be given credit for virtually inventing modern fashion photography, and as the tohousands of high-quality original prints in the Conde Nast archives prove, only Irving Penn and Richard Avedon have since emerged as serious historical rivals.

This gesture is one of the motifs of modernity's turn against the principle of imitating nature, that is to say, imitating predefined morphological expectations. It is still capable of perceiving message-totalities and autonomous thing-signals when no morphologically intact figures are left - indeed, precisely then. The sense for perfection withdraws from the forms of nature - probably because nature itself is in the process of losing its ontological authority. The popularization of photography also increasingly devalues the standard views of things. As the first edition of the visible, nature comes into discredit. It can no longer assert its authority as the sender of binding messages - for reasons that ultimately come from its disenchantment through being scientifically explored and technically outdone. After this shift, 'being perfect' takes on an altered meaning: it means having something to say that is more meaningful than the chatter of conventional totalities. Now the torsos and their ilk have their turn: the hour of those forms that do not remind us of anything has come. Fragments, cripples and hybrids formulate something that cannot be conveyed by the common whole forms and happy integrities; intensity beats standard perfection.

This is almost always the case: A piece of art receives its f(r)ame when found offensive.

Time is the sole photographer of all the times, from the Big Bang till the possible Big Crunch!

Those static images have the uncanny ability to jar the memory and bring places and people back to life. They bridge the present with the past and validate as real what the passage of time has turned into hazy recollections. Were it not for them, my experiences would have remained as just imperfect memories of perfect moments.

Through photography and image I have been afforded the privilege of sharing the stories and myths of people's lives with others. The process for me became self-revelatory. It was a process of soul-making, something all humans are engaged in, no matter their endeavor. I saw a part of myself in each person I photographed. I came to realize, through the alchemical process of living, that each life is important, no matter how little that life seems to offer.

Toen fotograferen nog iets bijzonders was en een afdruk relatief duur lachte iedereen die op de foto ging. Alsof de foto zo meer waard werd.

Tina Modotti and EdwardWeston opened an upscale portrait studio and became involved in the avant-garde community of San Angel, a fashionable southern suburb in Mexico City, which was at one time a weekend retreat for Spanish nobility. It wasn’t until about sixty years ago that this still-quaint district became an integral part of Mexico City. Tina, as usual, modeled and romped in the nude, this time for Diego Rivera, an internationally acclaimed artist. In 1926, Diego’s wife Lupe Marín, accused him of having an affair with Tina and insisted that he not see her again. Not being daunted by his wife’s insistence, Diego frequently hung out with Tina and her younger friend Frida Kahlo, who in turn also enjoyed Diego’s company. It was all just part of the wild times in San Angel, however it probably led to Diego and Lupe’s separation and ultimate divorce.

To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.

To get from the tangible to the intangible (which mature artists in any medium claim as part of their task) a paradox of some kind has frequently been helpful. For the photographer to free himself of the tyranny of the visual facts upon which he is utterly dependent, a paradox is the only possible tool. And the talisman paradox for unique photography is to work "the mirror with a memory" as if it were a mirage, and the camera is a metamorphosing machine, and the photograph as if it were a metaphor…. Once freed of the tyranny of surfaces and textures, substance and form [the photographer] can use the same to pursue poetic truth" (Minor White, Newhall, 281).

To get the best view of life, you have to reach heights above the life.

To photograph people is to obligate them in some way to face things they weren't expecting to.

To me, the world and art of photography is to capture emotion, feelings and moments; and share it with the world. I master the art when I am capable of awaking emotion in other people through my images.

To take photographs is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy. To take photographs means to recognize—simultaneously and within a fraction of a second—both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye, and one's heart on the same axis.

To remember is to rewrite. To photograph is to replace. The only reliable memories, I suppose, are the ones that have been forgotten. They are the dark rooms of the mind. Unopened, untouched, and uncorrupted.

To the degree its ephemeral, the social photo does the opposite: it interrupts the traditional photographic mode of fixing the present as impending history, positing instead a captured moment that is indifferent to such recording.

To take a picture is to have an interest in things as they are, in the status quo remaining unchanged, to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing-including, when that is the interest, another person's pain or misfortune.

Trauma and pain are the foundations of art. I believe that. When tragedy strikes, however, a muralist or a watercolorist has the opportunity to be a human being in the moment and an artist afterward. Faced with the death of a loved one, a sculptor or portraitist can first grieve, suffer, and heal--then create. Most artists go through life this way. They can react normally to the trials and tribulations of the human experience. They can pass through the world with compassion and comradeship. They can make their art later. Outside, elsewhere, beyond. But photography is immediate. It does not offer the luxury of time. Faced with blood, death, or transformation, a photographer has no choice but to reach for the camera. An artist first, a human being afterward. Photography is a neutral record of all events, a chronicle of things both sublime and terrible. By necessity, this work is made without emotion, without connection, without love.

True photographs tend to remain on the streets, the story almost about to enter the edge of the frame of the snapshot or the shutter closing a moment too late, the story having just abandoned the frame.

Tuttavia non voleva passare per una fotografa sociale. Non più. Adesso, lavorando di tecnica e di fantasia, inseguiva forme distorte e illusionismi ottici. Così facendo sperava di riuscire a svelare il lato invisibile della vita e degli uomini. Si augurava di diventare tanto brava da ricreare la realtà fino a trasformarla in una sur-realtà.

Unlike cooking, photography kept you on your toes. It was chaotic and human -- utterly unpredictable. to capture an unposed face you had to wait for it. It was spear fishing. you had to move between the competing rhythms of the world and strike.

Vanity is by far my favorite of all sins, and the camera lens is the ultimate vanity mirror. The camera captures all moods and nuances; immortalizes the soft and silky continuum that is humanity. Those still life moments seem so fluid, so representative of continuity. They are a single moment captured, yet an eternity expressed. All your youth; all your ages, captured and expressed in a single click. Of all the indulgences, vanity is certainly my favorite which we should otherwise resist, but are inexplicably captivated by and addicted. What other animal would spend so much time pouting and preening for its reflection? Only humanity would participate in such self-adoration. You would think we have the most colorful feathers or softest of manes. Rather, we are a naked biped that feels incomplete without some decorative element, accessory, or embellishment of the self. We are intoxicated by the image of the body, no different than we are seduced by fine wines, foods, or mind altering elements. We devour the skin, and peel away clothes as if they were the skin of some tropical fruit, covering a colorful and juicy interior. We hunt for bodily pleasures, and collect them as prizes; show them off in social situations as if our companions were some sort of extended adornment to ourselves. We are revealed in our sensuality. To touch beneath the surface; to connect beyond facades, that unattainable discourse between individuals is put tentatively within reach in intimacy. To capture those moments is to capture the essence of what makes us human, and what ultimately sets us above and aside from the rest of nature. Capturing humanity in its most extravagant expressions is intoxicating. Vanity is by far my favorite sin, and it is an endless tale as infinite as humanity. Every person is but a stitch in a giant tapestry.

Vos 10 000 premières photographies seront les pires.

Walking the streets with camera in hand is akin to being on a treasure hunt as a child.

War is a terrible thing which incurs suffering for everyone involved in it. This book is not about taking sides. It is not about passing moral verdicts. Whatever your personal views may be, it’s unquestionable that Erwin Rommel was an important historical figure. This photo collection is significant because it sheds new light on his personality, allows us to view him from a creative standpoint, and adds a groundbreaking dimension to the history of World War II.

We are all photographers, that’s how we remember things; with pictures in our minds. Some of us have good taste and passion to make it an art form and just a few warriors who know the technicalities and marketing make a living out of it.

We are living in a moment where we have broken the equilibrium of the planet. We are not paying attention to our intuitive side. We only pay attention to our reason. We have become an urban animal

We don’t wish the day away. We embrace every second. Every new sunrise brings the possibility of possibilities.

We make, see, and love films, not digitals. To convert all of our movies, home videos, theaters, photographs and television to digital would be like telling a painter to throw away his brushes and canvas for an I-Pad. Celluloid isn't just nostalgic, it's an art form and, like it or not, it's superior to digital. It lasts much longer, it provides grain and brighter colors, and it takes more effort so that it produces something wonderful. With the inferior binary codes, pixels and untested shelf-life of digital files, plus the fact that these days anyone with a digital camera, even a two-year-old, can make a video and pollute the world with self-photography and cat pictures, film has a lot more integrity and worth than digital.

We photographers are a despicable bunch. We take photographs. The best of us do not show people as they wish to be seen, instead, we show people as we imagine they really are.

We sometimes take photos (or record a video) so that we can later see what was happening while we were busy taking photos (or recording a video).

What do we feel when we look at a good photograph? We just want to be there, right at the exact moment that photo taken!

What I am or am not wearing does not correlate with my competency as a professional, a mother, or a feminist role model. My clothes don't define me and neither does my nakedness. I define me.

What was the barn like before it was photographed?' he said. 'What did it look like, how was it different from other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now.