What Great Photographers said…
…about Photography.
The words below are very insightful as to what photography means to all great photographers. They hint at the essence of what photography is about. Many of these and other quotes about photography are very similar in terms of the what and the why. Take them to heart! It will improve your image.
"I am constantly amused by the notion that some people have about photographic technique - a notion which reveals itself in an insatiable craving for sharpness of images. Is this the passion of an obsession? Or do these people hope, by this "tromp l'ceil" technique, to get to closer grips with reality? In either case, they are just as far away from the real problem as those of that other generation which used to endow all its photographic anecdotes with an intentional unsharpness such as was deemed to be "artistic"." - Henri Cartier-Bresson
© John Neel
"There is no special way a photograph should look." - Garry Winogrand
"When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches." - Edward Weston
"Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
"One photo out of focus is a mistake, ten photo out of focus are an experimentation, one hundred photo out of focus are a style." - Unknown
"Sharpness is overrated." - Keith Carter
© John Neel
"Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop." - Ansel Adams
"Every time someone tells me how sharp my photos are, I assume that it isn't a very interesting photograph. If it were, they would have more to say." - Unknown
"...people say they need to express their emotions I'm sick of that. Photography doesn`t teach you to express your emotions it teachs you to see." - Berenice Abbott
"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." - Dorothea Lange
"...the eye and the camera see more than the mind knows." - Nathan Lyons
"Lately I've been struck with how I really love what you can't see in a photograph." - Diane Arbus
"What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera... notes with relentless fidelity." - Berenice Abbott
© John Neel
"No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film." - Robert Adams
"I would say to any artist: 'Don't be repressed in your work, dare to experiment, consider any urge, if in a new direction all the better.' " - Edward Weston
"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs." - Ansel Adams
"I only wanted Uncle Vernon standing by his own car (a Hudson) on a clear day, I got him and the car. Ialso got a bit of Aunt Mary’s laundry and Beau Jack, the dog, peeing on the fence, and a row of potted tuberous begonias on the porch and 78 trees and a million pebbles in the driveway and more. It’s a generous medium, photography." - Lee Friedlander
"The challenge of photography is to show the thing photographed so that our feelings are awakened and hidden aspects are revealed to us." - Emmet Gowin
"I am not interested in shooting new things - I am interested to see things new." - Ernst Haas
"Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph." - Andre Kertesz
" The word "photography” can be interpreted as “writing with light” or “drawing with light.” Some photographers are producing beautiful photographs by drawing with light.. Some other photographers are trying to tell something with their photographs. They are writing with light." - Philippe Halsman
"One doesn't stop seeing. One doesn't stop framing. It doesn't turn off and turn on. It's on all the time." - Annie Leibovitz
"The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer." - Gordon Parks
"I am a tourist." - Garry Winogrand
"I was born in Hoboken. I am an American. Photography is my Passion. The Search for Truth is my Obsession." - Alfred Stieglitz
© John Neel
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Comments
Thanks for sharing some great insights, John. Many of these are not the usual fare served up on photo blogs. I say amen to Cartier-Bresson's first point. And loved the Friedlander quote.
I'll have more insightful quotes on future posts!
It is my firm belief that if a photo evokes a feeling, or a mood then it is successful. Whether it is art, news - mine or someone else's..
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