top of page
Quotes by Photographer

"To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them."

"The camera is my tool. Through it I give a reason to everything around me."

"Of the thousands of people, celebrated and unknown, who have sat before my camera, I am often asked who was the most difficult subject, or the easiest, or which picture is my favorite. This last question is like asking a mother which child she likes the most."

"A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, the Testimony of how this person looked and what kind of human being he was."

"When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration."

"A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people."

"Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past."

"It's to surprise people about something that is extremely well known. I mean human reproduction, the human body, nature and so on. To surprise them with a new technique."

"Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk."

"People want security in this insecure world."

"My lens of choice was always the 35 mm. It was more environmental. You can't come in closer with the 35 mm."

"I like going to Church for aesthetic reasons, rather than spiritual ones."

"Whenever you make love to someone, there should be three people involved - you, the other person, and the devil."

"I still need the camera because it is the only reason anyone is talking to me."

"To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event."

"I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love."

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

"Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected."

"We've already seen how it's going to come in, in a truck, like it did at Oklahoma City at the Federal building or it's going to come in by plane, like it did at the World Trade Center."

"Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping."

"There is a new way with very very tiny fiber optics, which give an enormous high resolution. There are many many thousand fibers, very very close together with a very small diameter."

"The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda."

"To me, that is the essence of me as a photographer. It is those ideas, working with them, formulating them and eventually putting them down on paper, photographing them and then going on to the next step."

"I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways."

"People are so wonderful that a photographer has only to wait for that breathless moment to capture what he wants on film."

"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."

"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."

"People have to find ways of explaining the work."

"Uncle Brett had a definite vision that he was after, I don't think having a famous father affected him much."

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

"Wanting to take a light camera with me when I climb or do mountain runs has kept me using exclusively 35 mm."

"Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness."

"Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual."

"When I first toured with Wings things that were said about me were true - I did sing out of tune."

"Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can."

"Wherever there is light, one can photograph."

"To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy."

"I like photographs which leave something to the imagination."

"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything."

"The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told."

"Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself."

"Some people have compared the Klan images to ecclesiastical figures."

"When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I'd like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph."
Want,

"The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention."

"It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter."

"There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own."

"Beauty and the devil are the same thing."
bottom of page