Cinematography is a writing with images in mouvement and with sounds. — Robert Bresson
Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle. — Robert Bresson
You make the movie through the cinematography - it sounds quite a simple idea, but it was like a huge revelation to me. — Nicolas Roeg
Cinematography is infinite in its possibilities... much more so than music or language. — Conrad Hall
A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist, moving an audience... making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark. — Gordon Willis
I think the point of cinematography, of what we do, is intimacy. — Christopher Doyle
I had a love for photography, which of course rolled into cinematography. — Scoot McNairy
Eventually, I think cinematography for every culture is a way to explore different stories, different ways of also delivering a story. — Violante Placido
Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind. — Satyajit Ray
Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out. — Martin Scorsese
And Later I Thought, I Can't Think How Anyone Can Become a Director Without Learning the Craft of Cinematography. — Gus Van Sant
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room. — Orson Welles
Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images. — Steven Bochco
There are a lot of cameramen but not so many photographers. And a lot of cameramen attack from a technical approach without much imagination. They look, but they don't see. — Gordon Willis
Cinematographers Quotes
I think people just see cinematography as being about photography and innovative shots and beautiful lighting. We all want our movies to look great visually, to be beguiling and enticing, but I think that what really defines a great cinematographer is one who loves story. — Seamus McGarvey
I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense. — Roger Deakins
As the cinematographer is usually more visual than the director is and full cooperation is really the answer and to make a great film, you need a good director and you need a good cinematographer. — Vilmos Zsigmond
I thought that was a pretty stupid argument, really, because it's the final product that matters. The look of the film, however it's done, is still the cinematographer's vision in my mind. People said the same when color film came in, didn't they? The world evolves, and image-making evolves. — Roger Deakins
The cinematography is as much involved with the physicality of the scene, so a lot of our shots are hand-held. I felt the cinematographer needed to be the fourth-character with the same drive as the actors — J. Robert Spencer
I grew up as a cameraman, so it's much easier for me to shoot it myself. I work with an operator and a crew, but it's way easier for me to function as a cinematographer, than to have a cinematographer between me and the lens. I don't need that. — David Douglas
The art of making films is a collaborative art. As a composer, you're always working with the cinematographer because he's so much the heart of the world they've created on film. — Howard Shore
Every cinematographer I worked with had his own way of solving problems. — Conrad Hall
It's turned into a world of amateurs. There are amateur actors making millions of dollars, amateur cinematographers, amateur directors... Jesus, these amateur directors can get deals for anything. Another comic book? Oh, very good. — James Coburn
We discard the personal specifics which don't conform to the ideal conventional beauty created by art directors and cinematographers. — Damian Loeb
Cinematograph Quotes
I've worked with some of the great cinematographers. So I'm always watching what they do and I'm watching how the director composes his shots, just because I find it interesting as an actor; you're trying to help them out as well. — Eric Bana
But at heart, I am more than a cinematographer. — Conrad Hall
The visualization of my films is always very important to me and I work very closely with my cinematographers. I've never had the same cinematographer twice now that I think about it. I don't know why that is. Everyone is always busy. They do three or four films a year. It's vital to me. — Scott Hicks
The way I work with my cinematographer is not based on general principles, but the ideas are triggered by the locations where we shoot. — Paolo Sorrentino
Very few cinematographers, other than the Europeans, know how to light women like they used to in the old days. — Jennifer O'Neill
I think that digital is offering many great possibilities for cinematographers. Particularly in urban cityscapes and low light photography its allowing us to render what we actually see with our eyes; which is interesting. — Seamus McGarvey
An action choreographer is kind of like a dance choreographer. You choreograph the moves and you let the director, cinematographer take into positioning their cameras. — Donnie Yen
The eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone makes the eye impatient. Use these impatiences. Power of the cinematographer who appeals to the two senses in a governable way. Against the tactics of speed, of noise, set tactics of slowness, of silence. — Robert Bresson
I think I learned a lot on Beaches. A guy I worked with Dante Spinotti is a wonderful cinematographer and it was his first picture and he went on to be nominated for an Academy Award for "LA Confidential" which was great. — Garry Marshall
I have a profound respect for cinematographers. That is my secret sauce. Like they are everything to me. — Jake Gyllenhaal
Photography Quotes
It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head. — Henri Cartier-Bresson
A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person. — Saul Leiter
Life is like photography. You need the negatives to develop. — Ziad K. Abdelnour
I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical. — Trent Parke
Only photography has been able to divide human life
into a series of moments, each of them has the value of a complete existence. — Eadweard Muybridge
You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn't waste either. — Galen Rowell
You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved. — Ansel Adams
I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. — Mark Rothko
I like to make people a little uncomfortable. It encourages them to examine who they are and why they think the way they do. — Sally Mann
The biggest cliche in Photography is Sunrise and Sunset. — Catherine Opie
Photography And Film Quotes
Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow. — Imogen Cunningham
The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed. — Anne Geddes
For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity. — Henri Cartier-Bresson
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
Ultimately photography is about who you are. It's the truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit. — Leonard Freed
To me if there's an achievement to lighting and photography in a film it's because nothing stands out, it all works as a piece. And you feel that these actors are in this situation and the audience is not thrown by a pretty picture or by bad lighting. — Roger Deakins
The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. — Richard Avedon
Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times...I just shoot at what interests me at that moment. — Elliott Erwitt
... the reason we think that computer graphics technology has succeeded in faking reality is that we, over the course of the last hundred and fifty years, have come to accept the image of photography and film as reality. — Lev Manovich
I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera. — Gordon Parks
Tagore once said - art has to be beautiful, but, before that, it has to be truthful. — Ritwik Ghatak
The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed. — Gordon Parks
We lay out our lives in a narrative we understand, like a movie, but are you enjoying making it or are you wondering who's watching my movie. — Donald Glover
Hollywood is still the mecca for good or bad, but it isn't the beginning or end for filmmaking. — Robert Duvall
Living
consciously involves being genuine; it involves listening and
responding to others honestly and openly; it involves being in the
moment. — Sidney Poitier
Love is all a matter of timing. It's no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. — Wong Kar-wai
A government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation funds filmmaking there, and I wrote several screenplays but never got any money. They were sent back to me, and they said that they were too commercial for them. — Renny Harlin
The terrorists who committed the 2003 Istanbul attacks were locals, that is, Turks. And when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in the Netherlands last year, the murderer and his supporters were also part of the Muslim community. — Otto Schily
Film Camera Quotes
Oh yeah - I watched Knife in the Water, saw the shot, and repeated it. But even if I hadn't seen that film, inevitably the camera would've ended up on top of that mast, I mean if you think of it there are only so many dynamic shots on a boat. — Phillip Noyce
When we film the TV show, it's with a hidden camera so we don't get to see how fans react to what we are doing and when fans watch it at home. — James Murray
What’s really important is storytelling. None of it matters if it doesn’t support the story. — Wally Pfister
My dad gave my brother and I a camera to film our football games when we were 10 years old so we could see how we could get better. Then one day, we decided to pick up the camera and film whatever we were doing. — Jake Paul
Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all. — Stanley Kubrick
I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element. — Herb Ritts
Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum. — Ansel Adams
Two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater (actors, direction, etc...) and use the camera in order to reproduce; those that employ the resources of cinematography and use the camera to create — Robert Bresson
When I was a kid, there was no collaboration; it's you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself. — Steven Spielberg
The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. — Francois Truffaut
Camera And Photography Quotes
If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time. — Robert Doisneau
My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. — Steve McCurry
The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words. — Elliott Erwitt
You have a 45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and my weapon is just as powerful as yours. (To Black Panther militant Eldridge Cleaver) — Gordon Parks
There is 3 key things for good photography: the camera,lighting and... Photoshop — Tyra Banks
It seems positively unnatural to travel without taking a camera along... The very activity of taking pictures is soothing and assuages general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel. — Susan Sontag
The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it! — Ansel Adams
Photography is a very subtle thing. You must let the camera take you by the hand, as it were, and lead you into your subject. — Margaret Bourke-White
A photograph is the illusion of a literal description of how the camera 'saw' a piece of time and space. — Garry Winogrand
A lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they'll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won't do a thing for you if you don't have anything in your head or in your heart. — Arnold Newman
Color Photography Quotes
Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life. — Vincent Van Gogh
One very important difference between color and monochromatic photography is this: in black and white you suggest; in color you state. Much can be implied by suggestion, but statement demands certainty... absolute certainty. — Paul Outerbridge
Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. — Aaron Siskind
When you photograph people in color you photograph their clothes. When you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their soul! — Ted Grant
Seeing the Earth for the first time in orbit, you will be surprised that you never noticed the quality and texture of colors. — Peggy Whitson
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
Photography has always been associated with death. Reality is colorful, yet early photography always took the color out of reality and made it black-and-white. Color is life; black-and-white is death. There was a ghost hidden in the invention of photography. — Nobuyoshi Araki
In black and white you suggest, in color you state. — Paul Outerbridge
I believe that the essence of photography is black and white. Color is but a deviance. — Sarah Moon
Only in black and white can I see the design and textures. I don't consider color photography art. Black and white is an interpretation. Color is a duplication. — Clyde Butcher
Art Photography Quotes
The desire to discover, the desire to move, to capture the flavor, three concepts that describe the art of photography. — Helmut Newton
Art can no longer be merely a mirror, it must act as the organizer of the people's consciousness... No form of representation is so readily comprehensible to the masses as photography. — El Lissitzky
The observer must learn to look at the picture as a graphic representation of a mood and not as a representation of objects. — Wassily Kandinsky
To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. — Elliott Erwitt
Nowadays, with digital printing, it's so easy to make everything perfect, which is not always a good idea. Sometimes the mistakes are really what make a piece. — Cindy Sherman
I want to take some quite incredible photographs that have never been taken before... pictures which are simple and complex at the same time, which will amaze and overwhelm people ... I must achieve this so that photography can begin to be considered a form of art. — Alexander Rodchenko
I can get obsessed by anything if i look at it long enough. That's the curse of being a photographer. — Irving Penn
Art is all about doing what you shouldn't. — Nobuyoshi Araki
The pictures are there, and you just take them. — Robert Capa
There are two dirty words in photography, one is art, the other is good taste — Helmut Newton
When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite. — Sergio Leone
When you move the camera, or you do a shot like the crane down (in Shawshank) with them standing on the edge of the roof, then it's got to mean something. You've got to know why you're doing it; it's got to be for a reason within the story, and to further the story. — Roger Deakins
Depressed, anxious, sad, frightened? Yes. But I've never been bored. — Dustin Hoffman
Editing is not merely a method of the junction of separate scenes or pieces, but is a method that controls the 'psychological guidance' of the spectator. — Vsevolod Pudovkin
There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor? — Mary Astor
I'm mad, true. But only about one thing. Horror movies. I love spooks. They are a friendly fearsome lot. Very nice people, actually, if you get to know them. Not like these industry chaps out here — Kishore Kumar
All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character. Without character, there is no story. And without story, there is no screenplay. — Syd Field
I like to say that lighting is about taking the light away. I often like to use the shadows more than the light. — Vilmos Zsigmond
Light can be gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, springlike, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm and soft. — Sven Nykvist
The future of cinematography belongs to a new race of young solitaries who will shoot films by putting their last penny into it and not let themselves be taken in by the material routines of the trade. — Robert Bresson
My father would tell anyone who would listen that this dentist thing he was doing was not his passion; cinematography was. — Lasse Hallstrom
I like movies where you can come back and re-watch them and admire the cinematography 25 years later. — Rob Zombie
In old movies, the cinematography is a thousand times better than anything today. Writing, a thousand times better. — John Kricfalusi
There are particular images that I like. Allegro is composed of a series of still life photographs that has been put to speed. There is so much care that has gone into the composition of the cinematography. — Helena Christensen
The art of moviemaking seems to get thrown away. The cinematography is gone, and the look of everything becomes of little importance. You lose the memorable images; everything looks like it's been shot at night with a security camera. — Rob Zombie
I feel for Veronica Mars so much when I'm watching at home. It is a wonderful story. The writing is consistently funny, biting, charming, heart-wrenching, etc. I also like the look of it. The cinematography - different from any other show. — Jason Dohring
I like the powerful story, the excellent performances the beautiful cinematography and the vision of the "The Piano". — Mabel Cheung
I'm proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story - it's casting, editing, cinematography. — Bonnie Raitt
Not all pictures but some pictures you're like, "Wow, I wish I could be there" or you feel like you are there. I don't know what it is about cinematography. — Scoot McNairy
I believe that filmmakers have to internalize the story and subtext so well that all of the departments can start to speak to each other - that music can speak to cinematography can speak to writing and back again. — Shane Carruth
Music is, for me, a great tool of a filmmaker, the same way cinematography, the acting, editing, post-production, the costumes are. You know, to help you tell a story. — Spike Lee
In fact, my methodology is based on the idea of waiting for when inspiration arrives for the actors. And that means that the light, the cinematography, everything has to be ready for that moment, so they don't have to wait. — Albert Serra
I'm not sure that I could give notes to someone that I revere. That's a general challenge of directing, giving notes to someone you revere. The other big contribution to this, which most people I show footage to take note of is Mauro Fiore's cinematography is unbelievable. — Shawn Anthony Levy
The cinematography was of course incredibly important to me because I graduated as a cinematographer. — Pirjo Honkasalo
I wanted to transfer to an art school, and ended up going to the University of Southern California. They had a cinematography school, and I said "Well, that's sort of like photography, maybe that will be interesting." And once I started in that department, I found what it was that I loved and was good at. — George Lucas
If TV seems improved, I think it's been enhanced by violence and sex permissible on cable, as well as better cinematography, but in the end it's really only soap operas like your grandmother's afternoon "stories" and that's all it wants to be or has to be. — William Monahan
As important as it is to learn the techniques of cinematography, you also have to learn how to deal with the movie set, with show business. I came up with a cinematographer who is very talented, but she was never quite able to handle everything else you have to do - dealing with the producer and the crew and the time frame that you have to follow. — Maryse Alberti
And later I thought, I can't think how anyone can become a director without learning the craft of cinematography. — Nicolas Roeg
I remember the first film I reviewed for the Daily was a John Ford Western. I think it was My Darling Clementine, but I am not certain. And I was just impressed by, first, the story itself. I didn't know that much about films. But the acting, the director. And particularly, the cinematography, the black-and-white use of exteriors, I noted particularly. — Roger Corman
When the cinematography school told me I would have no chance to get a job, I said, "It's irrelevant." My mom was a feminist in the '20s. She taught me to be on my own, to be independent, to do what I wanted to do. I did not believe it would be difficult. It was difficult. In '66, I almost starved for a year and a half, and the only way I did not starve was because I could not find a job in camera, but I found a job in editing. — Babette Mangolte
I think women have made progress in cinematography, contrary to women directors, who I think have regressed. There are many more women cinematographers than when I started. — Maryse Alberti
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of cinematography quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about cinematography to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of cinematography quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.