favourite photo quotes

[KoNickon]

This last quote is along the lines of Ansel Adams's remark (that no one here has cited yet) that "the negative is the score; the print is the performance."

 

[lawrence]

"Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy - the tone range isn't right and things like that - but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention."

Elliott Erwitt

 

[splitimageview]

"Sometimes you get a good picture, but most of the time you don't. If you get one out of a thousand, you're lucky."

E. Erwitt, from his lecture in Austin 4 years ago

 

[doolittle]

“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

[sevres_babylone]

“Photography is but two things: where to stand and when to click the shutter.” -David Hurn

Werner Herzog: “"...There are few images to be found. One has to dig for them like an archaeologist. One has to search through this ravaged landscape to find anything at all... It's often tied up with risk, of course, which I would never shun, but I see so few people today who dare to address our lack of adequate images. We absolutely need images in tune with our civilization, images that resonate with what is deepest within us. We need to go into war zones, if need be, or anywhere else it takes us...to find images that are pure and clear and transparent... I'd go to Mars or Saturn if I could...because it's no longer easy here on this Earth to find that something that gives images their transparency the way you could before."
-from Tokyo-Ga-quoted in Taylor Segrest:
Wandering Toward Wonder: The Incendiary Trail of Werner Herzog's Fever Dreams

 

[telenous]

Well, this is addictive 😀

"A photo is a small voice, at best, but sometimes - just sometimes - one photograph or a group of them can lure our senses into awareness. Much depends upon the viewer; in some, photographs can summon enough emotion to be a catalyst to thought."

also,

"What use is having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?"

Gene Smith


.

 

[airfrogusmc]

We have a winner!

He said that very, very early in his career. The one I quoted was much later.
He had a change of heart. I'll repost it.
"When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches." - Edward Weston

Probably got that from hang'n with Adams and Cunningham (LoL).

 

[VF101]

While not specifically a photo quote, it perfectly fits to the feelings I often have when taking photographs:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
Samuel Beckett

 

[airfrogusmc]

"You should be able to look at me and see my work. You should be able to look at my work and see me." - Roy DeCarava

 

[KoNickon]

He said that very, very early in his career. The one I quoted was much later.
He had a change of heart. I'll repost it.
"When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches." - Edward Weston

Probably got that from hang'n with Adams and Cunningham (LoL).

A change of heart? I don't know; seems like his basic point is the same -- don't think about the "rules of composition" (whatever they may be).

 

[ferider]

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”

― Robert Frank

 

[bgetty]

not expressly about photography, but one i've always found relevant.

"The man who has no memory makes one out of paper." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez from Love in the Time of Cholera

 

[zauhar]

"I should have brought my camera" - HCB (quoted in his obit.)

 

[doolittle]

Cinema quote, but I like it:

“Film is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie.” - Jean-Luc Godard

 

[vm13]

"Position is where everything happens from" Frederick Sommer

 

[Vince Lupo]

"Photographers, like sculptors, should strive to remove what is not necessary."

Written in a guestbook 20 years ago at the Ryerson Gallery in Toronto.

 

[OurManInTangier]

One from Tony Benn, British MP and keen amateur photographer.

"Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure"

Sums up my take on photographing strangers. Revert to Sontag discussion.

 

[jsrockit]

One from Tony Benn, British MP and keen amateur photographer.

"Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure"

I like that one...

 

[gns]

"I never have taken the picture I intended. They're always better or worse".
Diane Arbus

 

[OurManInTangier]

Perhaps after the thread discussing Susan Sontag's quote regarding subliminal murder we should have one that may garner more widespread agreement.

“Today everything exists to end in a photograph.”
― Susan Sontag

🙂