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
Photography is the recording of strangeness and beauty with beguiling precision. — Sebastian Smee
Photography is the recording of strangeness and beauty with beguiling precision. — Sebastian Smeey
Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. — George Eastman
A photographer who made a picture from a splendid moment, an accidental pose of someone or a beautiful scenery, is the finder of a treasure. — Robert Doisneau
A good photograph is like a good hound dog, dumb, but eloquent. — Eugene Atget
Photography can light-up darkness and expose ignorance. — Lewis Hine
To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy. — Henri Cartier-Bresson
If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time. — Robert Doisneau
Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world. — Steven Pinker
Short Good Photography Quotes
It's more important for a photographer to have very good shoes, than to have a very good camera — Sebastiao Salgado
Photography has every right and every merit to claim our attention as the art of our age. — Alexander Rodchenko
A photographer is an acrobat treading the high wire of chance, trying to capture shooting stars. — Guy Le Querrec
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. — Ansel Adams
A good picture is equivalent to a good deed. — Vincent Van Gogh
A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. — Eudora Welty
Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. — Paul Strand
The hardest thing in photography is to create a simple image. — Anne Geddes
Life is a journey, photography is thy shepherd. — Destin Sparks
Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time. — Henri Cartier-Bresson
Good Photography Image Quotes
Science strives for answers, but art is happy with a good question. — James Turrell
The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
What Makes Good Photography Quotes
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 am not an artist, and I never intended to be one. I hope I have made some good photographs, but what I really hope is that I have done some good photo stories with memorable images that make a point, and, perhaps, even make a difference. — Cornell Capa
No one can really explain in a rational way what makes a good photograph or a bad photograph... This is why the art world will not throw billions of dollars at photography the way it has at painting; and that is what makes it an exciting medium. — David Wojnarowicz
Persist to overcome. He that can't endure the bad, will not live to see the good.
As a good picture would come, I would never know exactly what I had done. When you did see it, it would strike you as a great surprise - who did that? How did it happen? Being surprised by your own work makes you both less serious and have serious reverence. — Emmet Gowin
[The most important factor in making a good picture is] to know who or what you are photographing. It is not about photography; it should be about life. — Mona Kuhn
I just picked up a camera without any kind of ambition to be good or bad. And especially without any ambition to make a living... My whole freedom working in photography comes because I say to myself, Let's see what is going on in this world. Let's find out. How do these people look? — Lisette Model
Just do what works for you, because there will always be someone who thinks differently.
It's nothing but a matter of seeing, thinking, and interest. That's what makes a good photograph. And then rejecting anything that would be bad for the picture. The wrong light, the wrong background, time and so on. Just don't do it, not matter how beautiful the subject is. — Andreas Feininger
Appreciation Quotes
It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership. — Nelson Mandela
You learn something out of everything, and you come to realize more than ever that we're all here for a certain space of time, and, and then it's going to be over, and you better make this count. — Nancy Reagan
Happiness doesn't depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel toward what we have. We can be happy with little and miserable with much. — William D. Hoard
Never regret a day in your life: good days give happiness, bad days give experience, worst days give lessons, and best days give memories.
beginnings are usually scary, and endings are usually sad, but its everything in between that makes it all worth living. — Bob Marley
One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people. — Dick Gregory
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. — Carl Rogers
To appreciate the sun you gotta know what rain is. — J. Cole
The value of three things is justly appreciated by all classes of men: youth, by the old; health, by the diseased; and wealth, by the needy. — Omar Khayyam
An orchid in a deep forest sends out its fragrance even if no one is around to appreciate it. — Confucius
Good Morning Quotes
Every day may not be good... but there's something good in every day — Alice Morse Earle
Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day. — Dalai Lama
Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, 'you owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that! It lights up the whole sky. — Unknown Author
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. — Rumi
Good things don't come to those who wait. They come to those who agitate! — Julian Bond
love the life you live. live the life you love. — Bob Marley
Whatever is good for you soul, do that.
The prayer offered to God in the morning during your quiet time is the key that unlocks the door of the day. Any athlete knows that it is the start that ensures a good finish. — Adrian Rogers
Be willing to be a beginner every single morning. — Meister Eckhart
Wake up every morning with a thankful attitude. Expect something good to happen in your life today. — Joel Osteen
What Is Photography Quotes
What I like best about underwater photography is giving a visual voice to the invisible. What I like least is the prospect of drowning. — David Doubilet
Often people ask what I'm photographing, which is a hard question to answer. And the best what I've come up with is I just say: Life today. — William Eggleston
Just as typography is human speech translated into what can be read, so photography is the translation of reality into a readable image. — Herbert Bayer
Try no to resist the changes that come in your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come? How Rumi Can Change Your Life?
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. — Aaron Siskind
Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts. — Garry Winogrand
Art is all about doing what you shouldn't. — Nobuyoshi Araki
Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
What i like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce. — Karl Lagerfeld
To see something spectacular and recognise it as a photographic possibility is not making a very big leap. But to see something ordinary, something you’d see every day, and recognize it as a photographic possibility - that is what I am interested in. — Stephen Shore
Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph. — Matt Hardy
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. Every job is a self portrait of the person who did it ... Autograph your work with excellence. — Vince Lombardi
Great Photography Quotes
My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. — Steve McCurry
You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life. — Joan Miro
The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words. — Elliott Erwitt
There is a battle of two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth. The wolf that wins? The one you feed.
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
Photographs open doors into the past, but they also alloq a look into the future — Sally Mann
The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do. — Andy Warhol
You have to fight through the bad days in order to earn the best days.
In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv. — Henri CartierBresson
Photography is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It's a way of life. — Henri Cartier-Bresson
Kodak sells film, but they don't advertise film; they advertise memories. — Theodore Levitt
The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it! — Ansel Adams
Good Photographer Quotes
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
One of the things my career as an artist might say to young artists is: The things that are close to you are the things you can photograph the best. And unless you photograph what you love, you are not going to make good art. — Sally Mann
If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture. — Eddie Adams
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
I hate good taste. It's the worst thing that can happen to a creative person. — Helmut Newton
It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary. — David Bailey
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. — Robert Frank
Friendship picks you up when the world lets you down.
Never stop looking, no matter where you are, everywhere there are good photographs — Art Wolfe
You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things. — Andy Warhol
We think of photography as pictures. And it is. But I think of photography as ideas. And do the pictures sustain your ideas or are they just good pictures? I want to have an experience in the world that is a deepening experience, that makes me feel alive and awake and conscious. — Joel Meyerowitz
There is no recipe for good layout, what must be maintained is a feeling of change and contrast. A layout man should be simple with good photographs. He should perform acrobatics when the pictures are bad. — Alexey Brodovitch
Beautiful Photography Quotes
A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person. — Saul Leiter
My pictures must first be beautiful, but that beauty is not enough. I strive to convey an underlying edge of anxiety, of isolation, of fear. — Gregory Crewdson
The human body is first and foremost a mirror to the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that. — Auguste Rodin
The beautiful part of the cloud is, you know, it’s unlimited capacity, in theory. — Eric Yuan
The world is full of beauty, you are the greatest proof of this. — Matshona Dhliwayo
If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you're not out there, you'll only hear about it. — Jay Maisel
Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man. — Edward Steichen
The beauty of women was the first expression of my photography. — Alberto Korda
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 like taking photographs, because I like life. And I like photographing people best of all, because most of all I love humanity. — Horst P. Horst
Good Photo Quotes
The people on the streets just say 'hi' and let me walk on. They take relatively few photos, and those that do are tourists. Munich natives are relatively relaxed. They pretty much leave me in peace and I think that's very good. The Bavarian mentality fits very well to me. — Manuel Neuer
Good photos have come when I least controlled the situation. — Gueorgui Pinkhassov
Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgment that the photograph is good — Garry Winogrand
Photography is like making cheese. It takes a hell of a lot of milk to make a small amount of cheese just like it takes a hell of a lot of photos to get a good one. — Robert Gillis
And what we called photojournalism, the photos seen in places like Life magazine, didn't interest me either. They were just not good-there was no art there. The first person who I respected immensely was Henri Cartier-Bresson. I still do. — William Eggleston
Credibility is a must. Think of all those bloggers that kill us with photos outside the shows - there will be a selection there, too. Not because some are less good, but those that do not impose a style will have fewer requests. — Franca Sozzani
A whopping 89 percent of buyers start their home search online. How your house looks online is the modern equivalent of 'curb appeal.' Rent a wide-angle lens and good lighting, get rid of your clutter and post at least eight great photos to win the beauty contest. — Barbara Corcoran
There's always [on women's magazines] that great photo of the actress or model lifting up her shirt just to show you the bone structure and the six-pack of her own. It's almost like when horses are auctioned and they show you their teeth. 'Am I good enough?' — Janeane Garofalo
It's a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department. — Banksy
Family photos, pictures of groups, those are truely wonderful. And they are just as good as the old masters, just as rich and just as beautifully composed (what does that mean anyway). — Gerhard Richter
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
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 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
There are two dirty words in photography, one is art, the other is good taste — Helmut Newton
Marketing is about telling good stories. Social media marketing is about getting your customers to tell them for you. — Ryan Deiss
It began when I was so ill that there was a good chance of dying. I promised myself that if I survived I would never again pander to a magazine's requests or follow the ideas of art directors. I would only make images which were personal, which arose out of my own life. — Helmut Newton
I like to fight on the ground. I’m learning every day. I think I’m good. — Joanna Jedrzejczyk
Being a working mom and traveling as well with a baby, my goodness it’s a lot, but it’s all so exciting. — Meghan Markle
4G is very good, and most people with a good 4G signal are pretty happy with their service. — Micky Watkins
The shortest route to making money in the market is to buy gold stocks when nobody likes it. The only problem is that good stocks seldom have friends. — Thomas Phelps
Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur. — Alfred Eisenstaedt
I travel light. I think the most important thing is to be in a good mood and enjoy life, wherever you are. — Diane Von Furstenberg
I love fashion, and I simply enjoy good design in clothes and regard that as one of my hobbies. — Martha C. Nussbaum
I wasn't very ambitious. I think that's the solution. I just took things as they came. I wouldn't say I didn't have any problem, but I didn't care. I didn't think I was going to save the world by doing photography as some of these people do. I was just having a good time doing it, and so I still had a good time no matter what I had to photograph. — Imogen Cunningham
What is a portrait good for, unless it shows just how the subject was seen by the painter? In the old days before photography came in a sitter had a perfect right to say to the artist: "Paint me just as I am." Now if he wishes absolute fidelity he can go to the photographer and get it. — Aubrey Beardsley
Art films aren't necessarily photography. It's feeling. If we can capture a feeling of a people, of a way of life, then we made a good picture. — John Cassavetes
When I say that a good picture has surprise quality or shock appeal, I do not mean that it is a loud or vulgar picture but, instead, that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me. — Alexey Brodovitch
If the audience gets everything, if they see the photography and notice that it is good, then the story goes out the window, but if you become involved with the lives of the actors and forget that you are seeing mechanical devices on a huge screen - forget the make-believe - this is the job of the director to involve the audience with the actors. — Frank Capra
Good photography is unpretentious. — Walker Evans
What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman. — Walker Evans
I'm not a social person. Not that I'm not at ease. I'm pretty good, but it bores me. Not the people, but the whole thing. What for? It's not very productive. I only want to do what I have to do: fashion, photography, books. And that's all. — Karl Lagerfeld
I've heard many times that with all good artists it's ultimately a self-portrait even if it's an abstraction. I feel my work is very much who I am. I didn't try to make it that way; it just is. It reflects who I am and also my interests. — Joyce Tenneson
What is of value is that a particular photographer sees the subject differently than I do. A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think. — Alexey Brodovitch
Photography, when used as a representational art, is not a mere copy of nature. This is proved by the rarity of the 'good' photograph. — Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Good films are not made by accident, nor is good photography. You can have good things happen, on occasion, by accident that can be applied at that moment in a film, but your craft isn't structured around such things, except in beer commercials. — Gordon Willis
I don't care so much anymore about 'good photography'; I am gathering evidence for history. — Gilles Peress
Bad weather makes for good photography. — Ansel Adams
Good photography is not about Zone Printing or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. — Elliott Erwitt
I don't know what good composition is.... Sometimes for me composition has to do with a certain brightness or a certain coming to restness and other times it has to do with funny mistakes. There's a kind of rightness and wrongness and sometimes I like rightness and sometimes I like wrongness. — Diane Arbus
There is no such thing as a good paparazzo. A good paparazzo, that's a paparazzo who has had his camera broken. In fact, they are bandits, thieves of photography. (Statement after photographs were published showing Jackie Onassis sunbathing nude.) — Federico Fellini
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of good photography quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about good photography to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of good photography quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
