Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
If you can
provide me with a name to replace the “unknown” following some of these, I’d
appreciate it—Todd.)
I see something special and show it to the camera. The moment is held until someone
sees it. Then it is theirs.
—Sam Abell
Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a
moment—this very moment—to stay.
—Sam Abell
Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me.
—Sam Abbel
Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject
becomes part of the past.
—Berenice Abbott
Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the
shutter.
—Ansel Adams
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become
inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
—Ansel Adams
No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but
all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to
build confidence in the creative spirit.
—Ansel Adams
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
—Ansel Adams
These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on
old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms
and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. And they in turn seem
to be aware of me.
—Ansel Adams
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer, and often the
supreme disappointment.
—Ansel Adams
To the complaint, “There are no people in these photographs,” I respond, “There are
always two people: the photographer and the viewer.”
—Ansel Adams
To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the
qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.
—Ansel Adams
Some photographers take reality . . . and impose the domination of their own thought
and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an
instrument of love and revelation.
—Ansel Adams
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of
exploration.
—Ansel Adams
No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of
unexposed film.
—Robert Adams
The moment you take the leap of understanding to realize you are not photographing a
subject but are photographing light is when you have control over the medium.
—Alberta
I think the best pictures are often on the edges of any situation, I don't find
photographing the situation nearly as interesting as photographing the edges.
—William Albert Allard
A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.
—Diane Arbus
The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an
artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.
—Brooks Atkinson
I think all art is about control, the encounter between control and uncontrollable.
—Richard Avedon
My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.
—Richard Avedon
If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've
neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.
—Richard Avedon
Working at the scene of the action, I have adopted Robert Capa's saying . . . But in
retrospect I add a corollary: if you're too close to events, you lose perspective.
—Micha Bar-Am
The photographic image . . . is a message without a code.
—Roland Barthes
Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply
from its proper corruption.
—André Bazin
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys
for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
—John Berger
All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this—as in other ways—
they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers.
Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may
change its meaning according to who is looking at it.
—John Berger
The camera can photograph thought. It's better than a paragraph of sweet polemic.
—Dirk Bogarde
Life wanted faces that would express what we wanted to tell. Not just the unusual or
striking face, but the face that would speak out the message from the printed page. I
am always looking for some typical person or face that will tie the picture essay
together in a human way.
—Margaret Bourke-White
Chance is always there. We all use it. The difference is a poor photographer meets
chance one out of a hundred times and a good photographer meets chance all the
time.
—Brassai
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.
—Harry Callahan
Photography has the capacity to provide images of man and his environment that are
both works of art and moments in history.
—Cornell Capa
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.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of
reality.
—Henri Cartier Bresson
We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have
vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We
cannot develop and print a memory.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition,
a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff,
sniff—being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or
you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
The era of popular photography which began with the introduction of the first Kodak
camera in 1888 is that of the anonymous photograph. . . . Both sitter and
photographer may be no longer identifiable. Yet . . . these primitive pictures are of
great historic significance. . . . Through them we have a detailed picture of everyday
life of a kind never previously available.
—Brian Coe
The camera is a killing chamber, which speeds up the time it claims to be conserving.
Like coffins exhumed and prized open, the photographs put on show what we were
and what we will be again.
—Peter Conrad
Which of the photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.
—Imogen Cunningham
Most of my photographs are compassionate, gentle, and personal. They . . . tend not
to preach. And they tend not to pose as art.
—Bruce Davidson
She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes.
—Frank Deford
The magic of photography is metaphysical. What you see in the photograph isn't what
you saw at the time. The real skill of photography is organized visual lying.
—Terence Donovan
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.
—Alfred Eisenstaedt
I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer.
—Alfred Eisenstaedt
I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be
needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I
shall really have become a photographer.
—Alfred Eisenstaedt
Now very often events are set up for photographers. . . . The weddings are
orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been
photographed it doesn't really exist.
—Elliott Erwitt
You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing
them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with
humanity and the human comedy.
—Elliott Erwitt
Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple
reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.
—Walker Evans
If you want to make good photographs, a camera has to be second nature to you.
Devoting too much attention to technical decisions can interfere with your creative
processes
—Robert Farber
Human vision is untrustworthy, subjective and selective. Camera vision is total and
non–objective.
—Andreas Feininger
When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you
photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you
are on the right track.
—Arthur Fellig
Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives
of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.
—Robert Frank
I always say that I don't want to be sentimental, that the photographs shouldn't be
sentimental, and yet, I am conscious of my sentimentality.
—Robert Frank
My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that
the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an
image on his mind, something has been accomplished.
—Robert Frank
There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind
of photography is realism. But realism is not enough—there has to be vision, and the
two together can make a good photograph.
—Robert Frank
You do your work as a photographer and everything becomes past. Words are more
like thoughts; the photographer's picture is always surrounded by a kind of romantic
glamour—no matter what you do, and how you twist it.
—Robert Frank
If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've
neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.
—Anne Geddes
Photography is the only “language” understood in all parts of the world, and bridging all
nations and cultures, it links the family of man [and] allows us to share in the hopes
and despair of others.
—Helmut Gernsheim
The picture may tell different things to different people—but it will tell. This may be a
yardstick for the quality of your photograph.
—Tim Gidal
Photography is truth.
—Jean-Luc Godard
I have a simple rule and that is to spend as much time in the location as possible.
I like photographs which leave something to the imagination.
—Fay Godwin
Look at lots of exhibitions and books, and don't get hung up on cameras and technical
things. Photography is about images.
—Fay Godwin
Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending
to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don’t see.
—Emmet Gowin
When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you
photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls!
—Ted Grant
Do noble motives and the desire to correct social wrongs justify the one-way intrusion
into, and exposure of the lives of the poor and helpless by film-makers who hope to
use the image of their misery to tweak the conscience of the well-off?
—Larry Gross
There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself,
for what we see is what we are.
—Ernst Haas
Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'.
—Ernst Haas
A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would
we ever recognize it?
—Ernst Haas
The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are
seeing. But, you have to SEE.
—Ernst Haas
A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, be the testimony of how
this person looked and what kind of human being he was.
—Philippe Halsman
I want my photographs to show people what they could never see in “real life”.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
—Todd Hanson
Just as a fisherman cannot catch fish unless his line is in the water, a wildlife
photographer cannot shoot great wildlife images unless he or she is out there with
camera in hand and the knowledge of what to do when the “magnificent moment”
occurs.
—George H. Harrison
I've finally figured out what's wrong with photography. It's a one-eyed man looking
through a little 'ole. Now, how much reality can there be in that?
—David Hockney
Photography concentrates one's eye on the superficial. For that reason it obscures the
hidden life which glimmers through the outlines of things like a play of light and shade.
One can't catch that even with the sharpest lens.
—Franz Kafka
Far from being objective, the camera shows us a narrowly selected, highly personal
and—of necessity—edited version of objects and events.
—John Stuart Katz
It's weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture
moments that added together, don't even amount to a couple of hours.
—James Lalropui Keivom
Everybody can look, but they don't necessarily see. I never calculate or consider; I see
a situation and I know that it's right, even if I have to go back to get the proper lighting.
—Andre Kertesz
The pictures you want tomorrow, you have to take today.
—Kodak advertisement
Forget the camera, forget the lens, forget all of that. With any four-dollar camera, you
can capture the best picture.
—Alberto Korda
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
—Dorothea Lange
While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more
than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little
our eyes permit us to see.
—Dorothea Lange
I realize more and more what it takes to be a really good photographer. You go in over
your head, not just up to your neck.
—Dorothea Lange
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind.
—Dorothea Lange
I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for
myself first and foremost—that is important.
—Jacques-Henri Lartigue
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.
—Annie Leibovitz
The subtlest and most pervasive of all influences are those which create and maintain
the repertory of stereotypes. We are told about the world before we see it. We
imagine most things before we experience them. And those perceptions, unless
education had made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.
—Lippmann
A Ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason
alone. I don't think this can be true for photography. Unless there is something a little
incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. We
won't take an interest in it.
—John Loengard
The camera is the instrument that brings the inner passion and the outward event into
harmony with one another.
—Edward Lucie-Smith
If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll
only hear about it.
—Jay Maisel
If you scratch a great photograph, you find two things; a painting and a photograph.
—Janet Malcolm
The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
—Robert Mapplethorpe
I just think it’s important to be direct and honest with people about why you’re
photographing them and what you’re doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.
—Mary Ellen Mark
I think you have to have a real point of view that's your own. You have to tell it your
way. And, I think that it's a mistake to shoot for a specific magazine's point of view
because it's never going to be as good. You have to shoot for yourself and photograph
the way you believe it.
—Mary Ellen Mark
We try to grab pieces of our lives as they speed past us. Photographs freeze those
pieces and help us remember how we were. We don't know these lost people but if
you look around, you'll find someone just like them.
—Gene McSweeney
I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I
can see.
—Duane Michals
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.
—Duane Michals
Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.
—Duane Michals
Trust that little voice in your head that says, “Wouldn't it be interesting if. . . ?”; and
then do it.
—Duane Michals
Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and
ordinary subjects. The object is nothing, light is everything.
—Leonard Missone
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.
—Nickolas Murray
I believe in the photographer's magic—the ability to stir the soul with light and shape
and colour. To create grand visual moments out of small and simple things, and to
infuse big and complicated subjects with unpretentious elegance.
—Amyn Nasser
The subject must be thought of in terms of the 20th century, of houses he lives in and
places he works, in terms of the kind of light the windows in these places let through
and by which we see him every day.
—Arnold Newman
There are no rules and regulations for perfect composition. If there were we would be
able to put all the information into a computer and would come out with a masterpiece.
We know that's impossible. You have to compose by the seat of your pants.
—Arnold Newman
Visual ideas combined with technology combined with personal interpretation equals
photography. Each must hold its own; if it doesn’t, the thing collapses.
—Arnold Newman
Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we
create our own private world
—Arnold Newman
It's that I don't like white paper backgrounds. A woman does not live in front of white
paper. She lives on the street, in a motor car, in a hotel room.
—Helmut Newton
I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the
photographs when you hold them in your hand.
—Helmut Newton
When someone sees me with a camera that weights almost ten pounds, he assumes
immediately that I’m a serious photographer.
—Bill Owens
According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word snapshot was originally a hunting
term.
—“Sy Parrish” in One Hour Photo
And if these pictures have anything important to say to future generations, it’s this: I
was here. I existed. I was young, I was happy, and someone cared enough about me
in this world to take my picture.
—“Sy Parrish” in One Hour Photo
All around me all the time are pictures waiting to be discovered. Some of them will last
longer than others, but none is permanent. Making a photograph is the act of giving
permanence to something transient. It’s making sure the wildflowers will never go
away.
—Freeman Patterson
God creates, and . . . some human beings discover. Discovery is not accidental. We
discover only when we make ourselves ready to receive.
—Freeman Patterson
A photographer’s subject matter must harmonize with his style in order for the
photograph to convey meaning.
—Freeman Patterson
Failure by the viewer to see what is intended is not always the photographer’s fault. . . .
But every artist must grapple with the problem of how his personal understanding
potentially will be recognized.
—Freeman Patterson
Composition should be determined by picture content, rather than be imposed upon it.
It’s far better to have reasons for each composition you make, than to have rules which
you try to force upon the subject.
—Freeman Patterson
A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the
viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.
—Irving Penn
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.
—Man Ray
I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from
dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to
paint, the things which already have an existence.
—Man Ray
Maybe because it's entirely an artist's eye, patience and skill that makes an image and
not his tools.
—Ken Rockwell
Your equipment DOES NOT affect the quality of your image. The less time and effort
you spend worrying about your equipment, the more time and effort you can spend
creating great images. The right equipment just makes it easier, faster, or more
convenient for you to get the results you need.
—Ken Rockwell
No matter how advanced your camera you still need to be responsible for getting it to
the right place at the right time and pointing it in the right direction to get the photo you
want.
—Ken Rockwell
The still [photo] must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.
—Cindy Sherman
Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working
when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do
that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.
—Susan Sontag
It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph—only
less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious ones.
—Susan Sontag
In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the
one who invents it.
—Susan Sontag
The most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that
we can hold the whole world in our heads—as an anthology of images.
—Susan Sontag
Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of
the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has
created. It is a major force in explaining man to man.
—Edward Steichen
The use of the term art medium is, to say the least, misleading, for it is the artist that
creates a work of art not the medium. It is the artist in photography that gives form to
content by a distillation of ideas, thought, experience, insight and understanding.
—Edward Steichen
I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
—John Steinbeck
I shutter to think how many people are underexposed and lacking depth in this field.
—Rick Steves
It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by
revealing the core of their humanness.
—Paul Strand
Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.
—Paul Strand
Like chess, or writing, [photography] is a matter of choosing from among given
possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but
infinite.
—John Szarkowski
The question is not what you look at but what you see!
—Henry David Thoureau
Of what use are lens and light to those who lack in mind and sight?
—Unknown
One photo out of focus is a mistake, ten photos out of focus are an experimentation,
one hundred photo out of focus are a style.
—Unknown
A picture is worth a thousand words; a slide show is both.
—Unknown
The enemy of photography is the convention, the fixed rules of “how to do”. The
salvation of photography comes from the experiment.
—Unknown
Photography teaches that how well you see has nothing to do with how well you see.
—Unknown
Putting the camera in their faces is always the hardest thing. But you just have to do it.
—Unknown
What we can easily see is only a small percentage of what is possible. Imagination is
having the vision to see what is just below the surface; to picture that which is
essential, but invisible to the eye.
—Unknown
When people ask what equipment I use, I tell them, “My eyes”.
—Unknown
If you are just shooting the passing scene people don't care. Grab shots tend to look
like a sneak took them. Eye contact makes all the difference in a good image. You are
the exploiter—it isn't called taking pictures for nothing.
—Unknown
What is the most important element of photojournalism: Light? Moment? Composition?
You are wrong—it's magic.
—Unknown
I've noticed in my photography that I do a lot better when I'm on vacation. I'm more
relaxed and true to my own senses. I really think that's the only route to pure
happiness. Letting go of rules.
—Unknown
I enjoy photography, that's why I do it. If you are taking pictures you are not enjoying,
don't take them. If you are stuck behind the camera and would rather stop taking
pictures and play; go play.
—Unknown
Some photographs make a statement; others ask a question. Some people like the
obvious; others like ambiguity. Both types of images and both types of people are
correct, just different.
—Unknown
There are three phases to awareness: to look, to see, and to perceive. A camera looks.
A mind sees. A heart perceives.
—Unknown
T'isn't the camera at all, 'tis the fella behind the camera.
—Unknown
A great photo happens when a photographer sees a situation unfolding in front of them
that evokes an emotion that the photographer feels deep down, in the middle of their
chest. And in a split second, they . . . release the shutter. The film is then processed,
scanned, laid out on a page, printed on a press, driven across town to the newspaper
carrier who throws it on some guy's porch, who then opens the newspaper and looks
down at that photo. . . and if that guy gets the same feeling deep down in the middle of
his chest that the photographer did when they viewed the situation in the first place,
they have made a great photo.
—Unknown
The type of camera you use for photography makes no difference. A loving, open heart
makes a photograph, not a camera.
—Unknown
Photography is way to tell others how you feel about what you see.
—Unknown
A photograph must say: Here is what these people are like now.
—Unknown
A photograph is worth a thousand words—but which thousand words?
—Unknown
If you don't take the time to look, you'll never manage to see anything.
—Unknown
When one picks up one’s camera and freezes a moment in time, we all get a glimpse
of one’s soul.
—Unknown
Photography is one of the most universal languages around, and you do not have to
say a word.
—Unknown
Never take photographic advice from someone who tells you that there is only one way
to do something.
—Unknown
I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just isn't
that good.
—Unknown
You need not photograph a thing to know it. All you need to do is spend time with your
full concentration with the thing, person or emotion. One way is through photography.
Another way is by opening your heart.
—Unknown
It is not enough to be a good photographer. You also need to be a good person who
takes pictures.
—Unknown
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand words can’t describe a good
picture.
—Unknown
The thing itself need only exist for one two-fiftieth of a second, the time it takes to take
a photograph. It is the photograph which need have the duration since it is the
photograph which is printed in newspapers and magazines, sent through the post,
broadcast through the air, projected onto walls––not the event itself.
—Unknown
Photographers are violent people. First they frame you, then they shoot you, then they
hang you on the wall.
—Unknown
Every time someone tells me how sharp my photos are, I assume that it isn't a very
interesting photograph. If it was, they would have more to say.
—Unknown
The goal is not to change your subjects, but for the subject to change the
photographer. —Unknown
When we care, we will not forget. The picture in our head or the vivid printed picture
will remind us. Without care, we would not remember, only see.
—Unknown
I find the still image more powerful than the moving picture, because it leaves me
alone for a moment with my thoughts.
—Unknown
If I could have put it into words I would have written it down. But I couldn't, so I took a
picture.
—Unknown
Our eyes are shooting millions of frames a day. We know we're selective because we
can recall only a few images the next day, and even less thereafter.
—Unknown
The difference between the recorder photographer and the artist photographer is that
the artist will, by experience and learning force the camera to paint the imagination, the
emotion, the concept and the intent, rather than faithfully and truthfully reproduce an
unattractive and unflattering record.
—Unknown
Do not see with just your eyes. If so, you are simply turning yourself into another
machine. See with your heart and not with your eyes.
—Unknown
A collusion exists also between all photographers present at the same situation: they
look at everything except at one another.
—Unknown
A photograph on its own can't change the world, but it can be a catalyst.
—Unknown
Buying a Nikon doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner.
—Unknown
Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the
creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain
always in his heart an amateur.
—Unknown
Don’t just show pictures of starving children. That’s not all there is. I saw people
struggling to survive and making it. I saw families holding together. I saw kindness and
beauty, not just bombing and death. I heard beautiful stories, but that’s not what the
media shows us. I want to go back live there again someday. It’s a beautiful country
and it has an amazing culture and history. If you are going to tell a story, tell the whole
story.
—Alek Wek
Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie . . . so the photographer is much more
likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion.
—Edward Weston
Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work
too, no matter how pleasurable it may be.
—Edward Weston
Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn't photogenic.
—Edward Weston
Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the
laws of gravity before going for a walk
—Edward Weston
No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the
photographer It has chosen.
—Minor White
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
—Oscar Wilde
No one makes less sense than famous photographers. It's a good thing they have
chosen a visual medium, as words are not their strong suit. Has anyone ever seen a
collection of quotes full of as much useless pomposity as these?
—Unknown