Best 2475 quotes in «photography quotes» category

As I became aware that all things have unique spatial and temporal qualities which visually define and relate them, I began to perceive the things I was photographing not as objects but as events. Working to develop my skills of perceiving and symbolizing these event qualities, I discovered the principle of opposites. When, for example, I photographed the smooth, luminous body of a woman behind a dirty cobwebbed window, I found that the qualities of each event were enhanced and the universal forces which they manifested were more powerfully evoked.

As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.

As in any person's life, there have been difficult moments: I have a son with Down's syndrome; through my photography, I have witnessed all manner of human degradation. But there have also been very happy moments.

As is often said of photography, this photograph is a frozen moment. A frozen moment is not a moment at all.

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.

Asked for your opinion on the prints, you have two choices: truth or tact. I ask for the bathroom.

Ask photographers to write and they have nothing to say; ask them to talk about their work and they won't shut up.

As much as I love music, in my mind, photography is what makes me the happiest - that's for sure.

As people, we love pattern. But interrupted pattern is more interesting.

As photographers, we live through things so swiftly. All our experience and training is focused toward snatching off the highlights... That all significant perfect moment, so essential to capture, is often highly perishable. There may be little opportunity to probe deeper.

As Spectator I wanted to explore photography not as a question (a theme) but as a wound.

As the oldest I was a daddys girl and loved him with all my heart. My daddy had holes in his shoes so that he could pay for my photography classes, you know what I mean.

As the possibilities for straightforward photography seem to have become exhausted it has been the photographers who know about the history of art, not simply the history of photography, who have shaped important directions for the future.

A studio session ... provides the greatest chance for control. Even though there is total freedom, I still dislike studio photography and the contrived images that usually stem from this genre.

As you get older, you have different tools, and you learn to use photography differently.

As you see something that yo want to shot and it's bearing down on you, it's important to start framing long before the subject gets close to you. The light will reveal itself possibly long before you want to take the image, but you have to wait until the picture comes to you, and if you've been anticipating carefully when the subject will be in position, the background will have been figured out in advance.

At a fundamental level photography is much like pointing, and all of us occasionally point at things: look at that, look at that sailboat, look at that tree, etc. etc.

At exhibition openings always praise the chicken for laying eggs; you can wring its neck later.

At birth we begin to discover that shapes, sounds, lights, and textures have meaning. Long before we learn to talk, sounds and images form the world we live in. All our lives, that world is more immediate than words and difficult to articulate. Photography, reflecting those images with uncanny accuracy, evokes their associations and our instant conviction. The art of the photographer lies in using those connotations, as a poet uses the connotations of words and a musician the tonal connotations of sounds.

At Columbia there's no performing arts department, so I was searching for it everywhere I could, and I took some photography classes and I ended up becoming fascinated with Eastern Religion, and ultimately it seemed to encompass the more abstract mind that I have.

At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.

A thing is not what you say it is or what you photograph it to be or what you paint it to be or what you sculpt it to be. Words, photographs, paintings, and sculptures are symbols of what you see, think, and feel things to be, but they are not the things themselves.

At one point cinema and photography weren't treated as art. Now it's crazy to think they're not. The key question is "What is art today?" The most important artists of the last 20 years are Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive, because the influence they have had is incredible and they've changed the world. That is art.

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.

At the end of the day, photography is ninety-nine percent business, connections, and politics and one percent creativity.

At this sunset hour, the canyon walls are indescribably beautiful and I fear the magic of photography can never record what I see now. The tall spires near the canyon's top and the walls of the canyon up there look as if God had reached out and swiped a brush of golden paint across them, gilding these rocks in the bright glow of the setting sun.

At the heart of all photography is an urge to express our deepest personal feelings - to reveal our inner, hidden selves, to unlock the artist. Those of us who become photographers are never satisfied with just looking at someone else's expression of something that is dear to us. We must produce our own images, instead of buying postcards and photo books. We seek to make our own statements of individuality.

Bad weather makes for good photography.

A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it - by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.

A work can do many things at once, and it doesn't have to be just about the world, it could also be about photography, it could be about perception, it could be an exploration of the medium. It could be a document, it could be a visual poetry, and it could be a formal exploration all at the same time.

Balance of light is the problem, not the amount. Balance between shadows and highlights determines where the emphasis goes in the picture...make sure the major light in a picture falls at right angles to the camera.

A woman artist could be one of those intuitive geniuses [who] have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience.

Basically, I thought for a very long time that making music and art projects, that that was just something that I did, and real life was separate. And I'm starting to realize that the things that I do, making music and art and photography and all that, it's not just something that I do. It's who I am. So I don't think I'll ever be able to stop. It's like that curse that you live with, this thing that you love but you also hate it at the same time. It brings you a lot of joy but also a lot of heartbreak.

Be aware of every square millimeter of your frame.

Beauty is everywhere. And my photography came naturally without any particular inspirations growing up.

Beauty can be seen in all things.

Because I'm interested in depiction, representation, therefore you're interested in photography. You don't ignore it.

Because I know war... because I know the horror, I don't want to add to it. .........After the war, we felt the need to celebrate life, and for me photography was the means to achieve this.

Becoming a professional artist takes talent and perseverance, even more so when the field is photography.

Because powerful images are fixed in the mind more readily than words, the photographer needs no interpreter. A photograph means the same thing all over the world and no translator is required. Photography is truly a universal language, transcending all boundaries of race, politics and nationality.

Before, the myth of photography doesn't lie was used in order to cover up tricks. If I [make a] portrait [of] you, accommodate you, illuminate you, put make up on you or use a filter, am I not manipulating reality? The only difference is that now I can do it from the computer in the postclick instead of the preclick. If I decide to photograph something instead of something else, I also manipulate reality. Of course a photograph can lie or commit abuse, but it always could.

Before, I'd photograph anything. I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body.

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.

Before the first press pictures, the ordinary man would visualize only those events that took place near him, on his street or in his village. Photography opened a window. As the reader's outlook expanded, the world began to shrink.

Before you shoot an irresistible subject, mute all your senses except sight to find out how much is left for the camera to record.

Be gentle and tolerant. Intimacy will grow, but will take time and cannot be rushed. If all goes well, soon you will become more familiar with each other, and handling will forge awkward fumbling and fondling into more satisfying and productive caresses and eventually into a comfortable working partnership. At this stage you will be ready to accompany your new camera into the world.

Behind the lens, I found refuge and freedom, distance and connection, an intoxicating way to tame the huge, chaotic world.

Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'.

Being a photographer helps me see the work differently. I always walk away seeing things differently than when I stare at them myself. It gives me a little distance. So I love photography, but it also helps me tell the story. When I shoot the ad campaign for my work, it allows me to be much more direct.

But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there - to show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going on - to create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference - to protest and by the strength of that protest to make others protest.