Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ansel Adams

The dismal half-baked images of the average "reportage" and "documentary" photography are self dammning... the slick manner, the slightly obscure significance, the esoteric fear of simple beauty for its own sake - I am deeply concerned with these manifestations of decay. Gene Smith's work validates my most vigorous convictions that if the documentary photographs is to be truly effective it must contain elements of art, intensity, fine craft and spirituality. All these his work contains and we may turn to his work with gratitude, appreciation and great respect.

Ansel Adams

The negative is the score, and the print the performance.

Ansel Adams

The term accessories has come to include a host of photographic gadgets of questionable value...

Ansel Adams

The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Ansel Adams

Black and white photography is truly quite a 'departure from reality', and the transition from one aspect of visual magic to another was not as complete as many imagine.

Ansel Adams

In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.

Ansel Adams

Image quality is not the product of a machine, but of the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression.

Ansel Adams

The craft of photography is the key to good images.

Ansel Adams

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term-meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching-there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Ansel Adams

Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.

Ansel Adams

I tried to keep both arts alive, but the camera won. I found that while the camera does not express the soul, perhaps a photograph can!

Ansel Adams

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.

Ansel Adams

These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.

Ansel Adams

It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.

Ansel Adams

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.

Ansel Adams

The ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.

Ansel Adams

Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.

Ansel Adams

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.

Ansel Adams

A photograph is not an accident - it is a concept.

Ansel Adams

I know some photographs that are extraodrinary in their power and conviction, but it is difficult in photography to overcome the superficial power or subject; the concept and statement must be quite convincing in themselves to win over a dramatic and compelling subject situation.

Ansel Adams

It is easy to take a photograph, but it is harder to make a masterpiece in photography than in any other art medium.

Ansel Adams

Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.

Ansel Adams

I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.

Ansel Adams

You don't make a photograph just with a camera

Ansel Adams

Photography is an investigation of both the outer and the inner worlds. The first experiences with the camera involve looking at the world beyond the lens, trusting the instrument will 'capture' something 'seen.' The terms shoot and take are not accidental; they represent an attitude of conquest and appropriation. Only when the photographer grows into perception and creative impulse does the term make define a condition of empathy between the external and the internal events.

Ansel Adams

How high your awareness level is determines how much meaning you get from your world. Photography can teach you to improve your awareness level.

Ansel Adams

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.

Ansel Adams

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

Ansel Adams

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.

Ansel Adams

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.

Ansel Adams

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.

Ansel Adams

We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium.

Ansel Adams

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.