photographer Quotes

My favorite thing is to go where I've never been. A Fresh Look at Diane Arbus

• 223
• travel

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

• 36
• Photography

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.

• 20
• captured

A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

• 19
• Photography

There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.

• 14
• camera

A positive attitude can really make dreams come true - it did for me.

• 14
• attitude

Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject.

• 12
• Photography

Photography helps people to see.

• 12
• Photography

Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.

• 10
• art

A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there -- even if you put them end to end, they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds, snatched from eternity.

• 10
• Photography

As an artist you have to have a certain amount of arrogance.

• 9
• amount

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.

• 9
• Discovery

I'd rather get back to making art than talk about it.

• 8
• art

Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.

• 8
• Photography

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.

• 7
• people

You don't take a photograph, you make it.

• 7
• art

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

• 6
• knowing

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.

• 6
• contained

Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.

• 6
• Photography

One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy.

• 6
• Genius

Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.

• 5
• anyone

Trust that little voice in your head that says 'Wouldn't it be interesting if...'; And then do it.

• 5
• imagination

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.

• 5
• art

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.

• 5
• believe

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.

• 4
• artist

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.

• 4
• communications

I don't like to work with assistants. I'm already one too many; the camera alone would be enough.

• 4
• alone

My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.

• 4
• people

An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine.

• 3
• artist

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.

• 3
• being

What the human eye observes causally and incuriously, the eye of the camera notes with relentless fidelity.

• 3
• Photography

The great thing about this thing we call art is that it has no rules.

• 2
• art

I think hard drugs are disgusting. But I must say, I think marijuana is pretty lightweight.

• 2
• disgusting

When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.

• 2
• camera

Keep it simple.

• 2
• simple

Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.

• 2
• comprehend

Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it my be.

• 2
• amateur

Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.

• 2
• composition

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.

• 2
• art

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

• 2
• photographs

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.

• 2
• Photography

Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.

• 2
• Photography

I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked.

• 2
• Fashion

It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.

• 2
• Dreams

Well, I liked it - that was the main thing. I liked it, but I didn't think of it in terms of a career. I didn't really know; I didn't really think about it. One thing just led to another until finally I quit my job as a salesman and found myself working as a photographer.

• 1
• liked

A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, the Testimony of how this person looked and what kind of human being he was.

• 1
• being

There is no question that photography has played a major role in the environmental movement.

• 1
• environmental

I began taking pictures in the natural world to be able to show people what I was experiencing when I climbed and explored in Yosemite in the High Sierra.

• 1
• able

I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations.

• 1
• consider

A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere.

• 1
• atmosphere