PHOTOGRAPHY QUOTES III
quotations about photography
Photography, if practiced with high seriousness, is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere.
JOHN SZARKOWSKI
Looking at photographs: 100 pictures from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art
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.
EDWARD WESTON
The Daybooks of Edward Weston
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it.
DOROTHEA LANGE
Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life
Life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference and it is important to see what is invisible to others.
ROBERT FRANK
attributed, Photographic Possibilities
What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that's gone forever, impossible to reproduce.
KARL LAGERFELD
attributed, Click You!
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
DOROTHEA LANGE
Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life
Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.
ELLIOTT ERWITT
attributed, "100 inspirational photography quotes", Shootzilla
Photography is a fickle art. You might start with the plan to shoot perfume bottles and end up doing corporate portraits. You might think at some point in your career that uber retouched imagery is your signature only to realize that the natural look that you though so boring is becoming a key ingredient in your style. Yes there are individuals who have a distinct style even when they are toddlers but for the rest of us -- human beings -- our art is forged by the gruesome practice of trail and fail.
ANNA DABROWSKA
"Why Professional Gear Is Not The Most Important Element in Photography", Fstoppers, April 20, 2016
I love things like Instagram and Pinterest. I get so many ideas just by getting a daily digest of images from great photographers who I follow on social media. What that also does is it tells me which pictures stand out to me, then I can analyse them and try and work out what it is about that particular image that had me mesmerised for longer than a glance.
GUY SEBASTIAN
"Guy Sebastian shares his photography tips", Sunshine Coast Daily, April 26, 2016
A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
A great image is a great image, no matter who took it, where they live, and whether they were using a phone or the most expensive camera.
MIKE BETTS
"Community for Photography Photocrowd Seeks £450,000 Through Crowdcube", Crowd Fund Insider, April 28, 2016
We think of photography as the intersection of science and art.
EDWIN H. LAND
attributed, Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land
To photograph ... is to put in the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.
HENRI-CARTIER-BRESSON
Pix, 1993
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, or the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
EDWARD WESTON
attributed, Pictures on a Page: Photojournalism and Picture Editing
In order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes.
ROLAND BARTHES
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent. From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being, as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star.
ROLAND BARTHES
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
The photograph has reversed the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar.... The world itself becomes a sort of museum of objects that have been encountered before in some other medium.
MARSHALL MCLUHAN
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
The camera is a perfect companion. It makes no demands, imposes no obligations. It becomes your notebook and your reference library, your microscope and your telescope. It sees what you are too lazy or too careless to notice, and it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.
AARON SISKIND
attributed, The Amateur Photographer's Handbook
After all, the decisive quality in a photographer is the faculty of seeing certain things and being tempted by them.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
"George Bernard Shaw on Coburn's Photography", British Journal of Photography, 1906
The photograph extends and multiplies the human image to the proportions of mass-produced merchandise. The movie stars and matinee idols are put in the public domain by photography. They become dreams that money can buy.
MARSHALL MCLUHAN
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man