Quotes about photography
photography people trying
I try to use whatever I know about photography to be of service to the people I'm photographing. James Nachtwey
photography important lessons
It is very hard to say where you're going until you get there. That kind of thing is based very much on instinct. As a photographer, one of the most important lessons I have learnt is that you have to learn to listen to and trust your own instinct. It has helped to guide me - this far at least.
photography war lying
For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war.
photography torn-apart events
I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
photography mean giving
Photography isolates the world via an aperture and gives the photographer the means to see differently, to achieve a spontaneous vision that is direct and uncompromising. Ellsworth Kelly
photography real light
I was coming to realize that the real magician was light itself... Edward Steichen
photography art sake
Art for art's sake is dead, if it ever lived.
photography people patterns
The precision of hisskill places his work beyond the tentative and the experimental stage. He is continually searching and exploring both himself and his surroundings. and in this exploration of the realm of places, people and things, contrasts and relationships, Callahan is no respecter of conventional technical formula or code. His delicate sense of pattern is an integral part of his photography and not a thing by itself.
photography art self
To make good photographs, to express something, to contribute something to the world he lives in, and to contribute something to the art of photography besides imitations of the best photographers on the market today, that is basic training, the understanding of self.
photography spring mean
Some day there may be... machinery that needs but to be wound up and sent roaming o'er hill and dale, through fields and meadows, by babbling brooks and shady woods - in short, a machine that will discriminately select its subject and, by means of a skillful arrangement of springs and screws, compose its motif, expose the plate, develop, print, and even mount and frame the result of its excursion, so that there will be nothing for us to do but to send it to the Royal Photographic Society's exhibition and gratefully to receive the 'Royal Medal'.
photography art ideas
The use of the term art medium is, to say the least, misleading, for it is the artist that creates a work of art not the medium. It is the artist in photography that gives form to content by a distillation of ideas, thought, experience, insight and understanding.
photography perfect daguerreotypes
A good daguerreotype was as perfect a kind of photograph as was ever made.
photography feelings records
Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face.
photography mistake artist
It is an error common to many artists, who strive merely to avoid mistakes, when all our efforts should be to create positive and important work. Better positive and important with mistakes and failures than perfect mediocrity.
photography cameras photographer
No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.
photography photograph thousand
A photograph is worth a thousand words, provided it is accompanied by only ten words.
photography men earth
The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each to himself. And that is the most complicated thing on earth.
photography men records
Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.
photography art pieces
Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper the photographer begins with the finished product.
photography men sky
Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man.
photography simple artist
Photography is a medium of formidable contradictions. It is both ridiculously easy and almost impossibly difficult. It is easy because its technical rudiments can readily be mastered by anyonwith a few simple instructions. It is difficult because, while while the artist working in any other medium begins with a blank surface and gradually brings his conception into being, the photographer is the only imagemaker who begins with the picture completed. His emotions, his knowledge, and his native talent are brought into focus and fixed beyond recall the moment the shutter of his camera has closed.
photography art men
When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself.
photography glasses discovery
I start with no preconceived idea - discovery excites me to focus - then rediscovery through the lens - final form of presentation seen on ground glass, the finished print previsioned completely in every detail of texture, movement, proportion, before exposure - the shutter's release automatically and finally fixes my conception, allowing no after manipulation - the ultimate end, the print, is but a duplication of all that I saw and felt through my camera. Edward Weston
photography art believe
The painters have no copyright on modern art!... I believe in, and make no apologies for, photography: it is the most important graphic medium of our day. It does not have to be, indeed cannot be - compared to painting - it has different means and aims.
photography thinking water
People who wouldn't think of taking a sieve to the well to draw water fail to see the folly in taking a camera to make a painting.
photography gone matter
I was extravagant in the matter of cameras - anything photographic - I had to have the best. But that was to further my work. In most things I have gone along with the plainest - or without.
photography lying artist
"Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed "artists"."
photography vision patterns
When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches.
photography ideas perfect
Photography suits the temper of this age - of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately.
photography program appeals
My true program is summed up in one word: life. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me.
photography today spirit
Photography, not soft gutless painting, is best equipped to bore into the spirit of today.
photography school cities
It seems so utterly naive that landscape - not that of the pictorial school - is not considered of "social significance" when it has a far more important bearing on the human race of a given locale than excrescences called cities.
photography eye ideas
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, or the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.