Photographer's Quotes-Which stand out for you?

RdEoSg said:
If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough. -Robert Capa

I hope to stay unemployed as a war photographer till the end of my life. -Robert Capa

The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks! -Henri Cartier-Bresson, during the 1930's


hehe those are some of my favorites right there...That first one made me realise how much I dont need a telephoto lens
 
I'm putting together a handbook for students going abroad on travel photography, and these are a few I collected for it:

The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth. ~Harold Evans, "Pictures on a Page"

The quote in my signature!

All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.
~Richard Avedon

If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things.
-Sebastiao Salgado


And this longer passage by Allard I really like:

If a subject has a delicate surface to it, you do not want to go charging in there. You need to establish some kind of presence and understanding. I will say, 'Try to forget I'm here. I won't ask you to pose, I won't ask you to do anything.' It's important that I just be allowed to be around, to be present. Photographing people requires a willingness to be rejected. So, I think the best approach is to be honest and direct. Very often, I tell them, "You don't know me. There's no reason why you should trust me...the only thing I can promise is that I'll try to do the most honest work I can. Ultimately, it comes down to somehow being able to instill confidence. I don't think you can bull**** your way into that, because a lot of these people can see through walls. If you want to photograph people, you'd better know something about them. I like to explore, to be sensitive to the rhythms of the moment. Exploration means seeking out what I think is there, and yet often finding something finer, something closer to the center, that no amount of research could have led me to. I tend to react more than direct. You have to be receptive. You have to care. You can't do good work if you don't care. That's not necessarily a strength, but it gives you strength. –
~William Albert Allard, "Photographic Essay (American Photographer Master Series)"
 
Practically everything Garry Winogrand ever said is "quoteable".

~ I have a burning desire to see what things look like photographed by me.

~ Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.

~ Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts..

... and on and on.

Tom
 
I always grin when I see this one by Lee Friedlander

I always wanted to be a photographer. I was fascinated with the materials. But I never dreamed I would be having this much fun.
 
"I work by impulse. No philosophy. No ideas.
Not by the head but by the eyes, eventually inspiration comes"
-Manual Alvarez Bravo.

i love this one....
 
jshelly said:
Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.

and

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.

Both by Robert Frank
That first quote really makes you think. My favorite is the one in my signature.
 
Twenty-five years have passed since I started to look through my view-finder. I regard myself still as an amateur, though I am no longer a dilettante. -Henri Cartier-Bresson

from the book Nothing Personal, by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon:
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. -James Baldwin

From the VII web site, Gary Knight:
Like practically every other photographer who's biography you will have read his work has been published by many auspicious publications all over the world, he has contributed work to several books, exhibited in many museums and is the recipient of numerous awards but as far as he can see none of them have made a significant impact on the conditions in which the people he photographs live. Nevertheless he remains optimistic that this situation may be reversed.

And the best for last:
... And that is why photographers go there, to show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop wht they're doing and pay attention to what is going on. To create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference. To protest, and by the strength of that protest, to make others protest. -James Nachtwey, from War Photographer

I could go on for a while like this; I collect quotes the way some rff'ers collect lenses. More so, because quotes are free.
 
Back
Top Bottom