PHOTOGRAPH Quotes

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

Diane Arbus

Where there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us ro see.

Dorthea Lange

If photography were difficult in the true sense . . . that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching -- there would be a vast improvement in total output.

Ansel Adams

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.

John Berger

I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else. Excitement about the subject is the voltage which pushes me over the mountain of drudgery necessary to produce the final photograph.

Berenice Abbott

A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

As I progressed further with my project, it became obvious that it was really unimportant where I chose to photograph. The particular place simply provided an excuse to produce work... you can only see what you are ready to see - what mirrors your mind at that particular time

Henry David Thoureau

Gives us the greens of summers Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah! I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph So momma, don't take my Kodachrome away..

Paul Simon

You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it

Unknown

A good photograph is knowing where to stand

Ansel Adams

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things

Ansel Adams

They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.

Tallulah Bankhead

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

Diane Arbus

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term -- meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching -- there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Ansel Adams

The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer's understanding of his subject and mastery of his process.

Edward Weston