On Photography Quotes

If you want to photograph a man spinning, give some thought to why he spins. Understanding for a photographer is as important as the equipment he uses.

There's only one rule in photography - never develop colour film in chicken noodle soup.

I shutter to think how many people are underexposed and lacking depth in this field.

The idea that any photography can't be personal is madness! I see something; it goes through my eye, brain, heart, guts; I choose the subject. What could be more personal than that?

Photography isn't about seeing, it's about feeling. If I don't have some kind of feeling for what I'm shooting, how can I expect the person who looks at it to feel anything?

I like capturing stuff that is disappearing - that’s the point of photography. What I am photographing is an imaginary place that never existed, but is connected to something that has already been.

...to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude.

It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.

We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect... but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.

I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.

Ultimately photography is about who you are. It's the truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit.

If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.

A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.

Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture. You never realize that you needed was to change perspective.

I’m interested in using the iconography of nature and the American landscape as surrogates or metaphors for psychological anxiety, fear or desire

It's one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it's another thing to make a portrait of who they are.

Photography, like alcohol, should only be allowed to those who can do without it.

Photography is a love affair with life.

The beauty of women was the first expression of my photography.

I like taking photographs, because I like life. And I like photographing people best of all, because most of all I love humanity.

I wanted to show the thing that had to be corrected: I wanted to show the things that had to be appreciated.

Only photograph what you love.

Looking and seeing are two different things. What matters is the relationship with the subject.

My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.

The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness.

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

I don't trust words. I trust pictures.

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.

What's the point of getting killed if you've got the wrong exposure?

The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth.

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.

Photography, fortunately, to me has not only been a profession but also a contact between people - to understand human nature and record, if possible, the best in each individual.

Traditionally, photography is supposed to capture an event that has passed; but that is not what I'm looking for. Photography brings the past into the present when you look at it...

Allow yourself the freedom to step away from perfection because it is only then that you can find success.

The camera can photograph thought.

Portraits are the most intimate photographs. The image will survive the subject.

I gravitate towards places where humans have been and are no more, to the edge of man's influence, where the elements are taking over or covering man's traces.

I think photography was inside me. Once I found it, it became stronger than me and I took refuge in it.

Videos are more like photography. It's not as much about trying to tell a story as it is creating images.

I'd very much like to create my own style as a photographer, even if it's just for myself.

The eye should learn to listen before it looks.

The camera has always been a guide, and it's allowed me to see things and focus on things that maybe an average person wouldn't even notice.

Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.

Grain is the brush stroke of photography.

A camera can get you close without the burden of commitment. It's a nifty device that way, a magical passport into people's lives with no permanent strings attached.

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.

The more you photograph, the more you realize what can and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.

The photograph is completely abstracted from life, yet it looks like life. That is what has always excited me about photography.

Photography is the recording of strangeness and beauty with beguiling precision.

There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.