top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Photographer
"When you do portraits professionally it's not a desire, it's for money."
13
"They often ask me to shoot for them. But I say no. I think an old guy like me ought not take pages away from young photographers who need the exposure."
Old,
13
"Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again."
13
"Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information."
12
"You've got to push yourself harder. You've got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You've got to take the tools you have and probe deeper."
12
"Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence."
12
"I used to hate doing color. I hated transparency film. The way I did color was by not wanting to know what kind of film was in my camera."
12
"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."
12
"With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing."
12
"My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea."
12
"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."
12
"Unfortunately, the Church's position on most contemporary issues makes it hard to take them seriously."
12
"A woman said to me when she first sat down, You're photographing the wrong side of my face. I said, Oh, is there one?"
12
"And my real enemy is not to hold the specimen sterile, but it's the lighting. The light is our real enemy. So we have to work with very very poor lighting. But we can increase the light with computers."
12
"The reason that I keep writing is that all my most powerful messages about the fates of wild places that I care about need to have words as well as images."
12
"When you are on assignment, film is the least expensive thing in a very practical sense. Your time, the person's time, turns out to be the most valuable thing."
12
"It is part of the photographer's job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country."
12
"Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still."
12
"You don't have to sort of enhance reality. There is nothing stranger than truth."
12
"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."
12
"No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen."
12
"We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, any one of which might say something significant."
12
"I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand."
12
"In a war, you must hate somebody or love somebody; you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on."
12
"I turn people into human beings by not making them into gods."
12
"I remember when an editor at the National Geographic promised to run about a dozen of my landscape pictures from a story on the John Muir trail as an essay, but when the group of editors got together, someone said that my pictures looked like postcards."
12
"Mrs Woolf's complaint should be addressed to her creator, who made her, rather than me."
12
"The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera."
12
"No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film."
12
"I like to feel that all my best photographs had strong personal visions and that a photograph that doesn't have a personal vision or doesn't communicate emotion fails."
12
"I would travel only by horse, if I had the choice."
12
"Every ten years a man should give himself a good kick in the pants."
12
"The one image that's been causing a lot of discussion is one image that I shot of a man falling head-first from the building, before the buildings fell down. He was trapped in the fire, and decided to jump and take his own life, rather than being burned."
12
"I would like them all to enjoy life and try different things until there is something they really like."
Life,
12
"You see, I became kind of a drop-out in science after I came back to America."
12
"There are still so many places on our planet that remain unexplored. I'd love to one day peel back the mystery and understand them."
12
"Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare."
12
"The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box."
Act,
12
"I've been with Life now for seventeen years and I have written several articles for them and will be doing more writing and do at least two assignments a year besides my writing."
12
"My mother was killed in a plane crash, so I hate travelling in planes. Death is so unexpected. I would actually rather stay at home and not go anywhere."
12
"Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late."
12
"Luckily, many other people tell me how they have had a particular landscape photograph of mine in their office or bedroom for 15 years and it always speaks to them strongly whenever they see it."
12
"What I am interested in now is the landscape. Pictures without people. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually there are no people in my pictures. It is so emotional."
12
"I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive."
12
"There is nothing like a Bach fugue to remove me from a discordant moment... only Bach hold up fresh and strong after repeated playing. I can always return to Bach when the other records weary me."
12
"Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution."
12
"Television probably has become the most evocative, widely observed signpost we have."
12
bottom of page