Best 2475 quotes in «photography quotes» category

If I am lucky, something new and inexplicable often appears in front of my lens. I am always surprised by the mystery of how my best images appear. That excitement and shock of discovery makes my life at these moments a gift.

If I am dissatisfied, it's simply because good photos are few and far between. A good photo is a miracle.

If I am at a party, I want to be at the party. Too many photographers use the camera to avoid participating in things. They become professional observers.

If I didn't have a conviction that a serious painter can portray Nature more profoundly than the best colour photography, I'd probably give it all up or go abstract or take up photography.

If I could do what I want with my eyes alone, I would be happy.

If I could find them (assemblages) in nature I would photograph them. I make them because through photography I have a knowledge of things that can't be found.

If I had been born one or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make sculpture.

If I have caught myself struggling to remember, it was, if not a pretense, at least premature, in that I only ever used photography for my own pleasure - even if I then bewailed the vanished pleasure which my pictures brought back to me.

If I had to start over, I'd pursue photography - probably to the exclusion of acting.

If I indulge myself and surrender to memory, I can still feel the knot of excitement that gripped me as I turned the corner into Rue Mimosas, looking for the house of Rene Magritte. It was August, 1965. I was 33 years old and about to meet the man whose profound and witty surrealist paintings had contradicted my assumptions about photography.

If I like many photographers, and I do, I account for this by noting a quality they share - animation. They may or may not make a living by photography, but they are alive by it.

I find it some of the hardest photography and the most challenging photography I've ever done. It's a real challenge to work with the natural features and the natural light.

I find fashion magazines so incredibly boring . . . There still is no new photography and no new concerns.

I find that in the process of making a film you're constantly discovering things that you never even imagined would work at the beginning. Actors come into the film and do things you never even imagined. Production designers come in, the director of photography lights it in a way that you never imagined. So, it's always evolving, always exciting.

I find that when one has worked long enough, technical know-how becomes almost irrelevant. In photography, it's not difficult to reach a technical level where you don't need to think about the technique any more. I think there is far too much literature and far too much emphasis upon the techniques of photography. The make of camera and type of film we happen to use has little bearing on the results.

If I photograph you I don't have you, I have a photograph of you. It's got its own thing. That's really what photography, still photography, is about.

I find the single most valuable tool in my darkroom is my trash can

I find the surface of a photograph a thing of beauty in and of itself, and it is this surface that makes a photograph unique relative to other two-dimensional media.

If I see a nice photography book in New York, and I don't want to have to carry that back to Japan with me, I just order it from Amazon when I come home. There's no treasure-hunting anymore. It used to be like a hunt to find Air Jordans, Max 95s, and carrying them back.

If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up.

If it is practiced by a man of taste, the photograph will have the appearance of art (but) the photographer must...intervene as little as possible, so as not to lose the objective charm which it naturally possesses.

If it looks like art, chances are it's somebody else's art.

If it's a likeness, alone, it's not a success. If, through my portraits, you can come to know the subjects more meaningfully, if it synthesizes your feelings toward someone whose work has imprinted itself on your mind--if you see a photograph and say, 'Yes, this is the person,' with a little new insight--that is a beautiful experience.

If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.

I forget nothing and then, one day, there will be revenge. Innocence isn't exactly everywhere. But I will say innocence also takes you far in photography.

I found that I wanted to be best friends with almost all the women I interviewed because they had been through something. They were closing in on the circle of their journey and they had a kind of wisdom that comes from their long life.

I found that the camera was a comforting companion. It opened up new worlds, and gave me access to people's most intimate moments. I discovered the privilege of seeing life in all its complexity, the thrill of learning something new every day. When I was behind a camera, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be.

If people are fans of 'Mindfreak,' they are going to be so excited with 'Believe.' They are actually going to see those illusions that people think can only happen with trick photography.

If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.

If photography is to be likened to perception, this is not because the former is a natural process but because the latter is also coded.

If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul.

If photographers are responsible for creating or reflecting an image of women in society, then I must say, there is only one way for the future, and this is to define women as strong and independent. This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.

If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally.

If the bottom dropped out of the market and the artist was not going to sell anything, he or she will keep working, and the dealer will keep trying to find some way to convince somebody to buy this stuff.

If the audience gets everything, if they see the photography and notice that it is good, then the story goes out the window, but if you become involved with the lives of the actors and forget that you are seeing mechanical devices on a huge screen - forget the make-believe - this is the job of the director to involve the audience with the actors.

If the quality of professional materials continues to erode or even dries up, then many of us silver photographers would have to follow the digital tidal wave. It certainly wouldn't be the end of the world, but in my opinion, having no silver material available would be a huge loss to photography.

If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it's already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.

If there is a single factor which separates the best photographers from the wannabes it is the quantity of images which they produce. They seem to be forever shooting. I have watched many of them as they take picture after picture even when they are not photographing. [...] Often these intimate images do not look as though they were taken by the same photographer. And that is their fascination and charm.

... If we consider the difference between William Henry Jackson packing in his camera by mule, and the person stepping for a moment from his car to take a picture with his Instamatic, it becomes clear how some of our space has vanished; if the time it takes to cross space is a way by which we define it, then to arrive at a view of space 'in no time' is to have denied its reality.

If they want a photograph, then just take it.

If there is something occurring that is so bad that it could be considered a crime against humanity, it has to be transmitted with anguish, with pain, and create an impact in people - upset them, shake them up, wake them out of their everyday routine.

If we examine a work of ordinary art, by means of a powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to nature will disappear - but the closest scrutiny of the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented.

If you are able to see on a monitor what it's actually going to look like and have that kind of feedback informing your decisions, then you're bringing back a lot of the decision-making process of the designer, the director of photography and the director away from the post-production process and bringing it back into the actual capturing of the event on film.

If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you're not out there, you'll only hear about it.

If you are bored with your own photography you are really bored with what you are photographing, so pick a new subject about which you are knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

If you are intent on drawing or painting on your prints, you must first learn to draw and paint at least as well as you photograph.

If you are interested in photography because you love it and are obsessed with it, you must be self-motivated, a perfectionist, and relentless.

If you are not passionately devoted to an idea, you can make very pleasant pictures but they won't make you cry.

If you can capture the element of surprise, you're way ahead of the game.

If you look at most photography, especially the pictures that grab you, they are not objective at all. Sometimes gut wrenching and sometimes lovely, but the moment someone decides to release the shutter, it is an editorial statement.