150 Cinematography Quotes

Following is our list of cinematography quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about cinematograph.

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Famous Cinematography Quotes

Cinematography is a writing with images in mouvement and with sounds. - Robert Bresson

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

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

A film is never really any good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. — Orson Welles

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

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

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

The important thing is not the camera but the eye. — Alfred Eisenstaedt

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

Filmmaking Quotes

As they say in Corsica... Goodbye! — Gene Wilder

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

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

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

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

People Writing About Cinematography

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Read quotes by Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson
quotes on life

44 570
Read quotes by Gordon Willis

Gordon Willis
quotes on leadership, slavery and life

17 205
Read quotes by Orson Welles

Orson Welles
quotes on politics

200 1817
Read quotes by Nicolas Roeg

Nicolas Roeg
quotes on love, life and death

32 106
Read quotes by Conrad Hall

Conrad Hall
quotes on leadership, education and love

40 303
Read quotes by Christopher Doyle

Christopher Doyle

9 93

More Cinematography Quotes

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

Give me B movies or give me death! — Clive Barker

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

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