Harry Callahan Quotes

I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting.

I guess I've shot about 40,000 negatives and of these I have about 800 pictures I like.

Experience is the best teacher of all. And for that, there are no guarantees that one will become an artist. Only the journey matters.

If you choose your subject selectively - intuitively - the camera can write poetry.

To be a photographer, one must photograph. No amount of book learning, no checklist of seminars attended, can substitute for the simple act of making pictures.

Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure. If man wishes to express himself photographically, he must understand, surely to a certain extent, his relationship to life.

It takes me a long time to change. I don't think you can just go out and figure out a bunch of visual ideas and photograph. The change happens in living and not through thinking.

I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure.

A man's got to know his limitations.

Every time I talked about making a picture I didn't do it. I had already done it - talking about it! I quit talking.

A picture is like a prayer; you're offering a prayer to get something, and in a sense it's like a gift of God because you have practically no control-at least I don't.

A picture is like a prayer.

Only the journey matters.

It's the subject matter that counts. I'm interested in revealing the subject in a new way to intensify it. A photo is able to capture a moment that people can't always see.

A man has to know his limitations.

I think nearly every artist continually wants to reach the edge of nothingness - the point where you can’t go any further.

I love art because it doesn't have rules like baseball. The only rule is to be good. That's the toughest thing to do.

In terms of art, the only real answer that I know of is to do it. If you don't do it, you don't know what might happen.

It's a question of methods. Everybody wants results, but nobody wants to do what they have to do to get them done.

You're a legend in your own mind.

Nothing wrong with people getting shot, as long as it's the right people getting shot.

I think I came alive when I started photography.

I can tell you for me it goes on forever. There are some things you can't ever find out. You can't find out in one life either.

I can't say what makes a picture. I can't say. It's mysterious.

I like the simple things. I don't know why. I'm that way. I came from a simple place.

The mystery isn't in the technique, it's in each of us.