Quotes on Photography

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.

How high your awareness level is determines how much meaning you get from your world. Photography can teach you to improve your awareness level.

Literally, no man ever sees himself as others see him. No photograph or reflection ever gives us the same slant on ourselves that others see. It has often been proved on the witness stand that no two people ever see the same accident precisely the same way. We see through different eyes and from different angles. But if we could see things as other people see them, we could come closer to knowing why they do what they do and why they say what they say.

Photography doesn't teach you to express your emotions; it teaches you how to see.

I try to photograph people's spirits and thoughts. As to the soul-taking by the photographer, I don't feel I take away, but rather that the sitter and I give to each other. It becomes an act of mutual participation.

A woman artist could be one of those intuitive geniuses [who] have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience.

Photography my passion, the search for truth, my obsession.

The ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.

What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman.

Objectivity is of the very essence of photography, its contribution and at the same time its limitation

All I care about these days is painting — photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.

Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.

I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life.

A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. That's not what it's about for me. It's really about relationships and feelings...it's really hard for me to do commercial work because people kind of want me to do a Nan Goldin. They don't understand that it's not about a style or a look or a setup. It's about emotional obsession and empathy.

If you want to make more interesting pictures, become a more interesting person.

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.

The act of making a photograph is less a question of what is being looked at than how.

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels...

"Utter truth is essential, and that is what stirs me when I look through the camera."

If all your life means to you is water running over rocks, then photograph it, but I want to create something that would not have existed without me.