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14 Great Quotes By Photographer Eric Meola

Enjoy these quotes by photographer Eric Meola.

“Photography for me is a passion, not a job. Once it becomes just a job you’ve lost sight of why you originally became a photographer.”

“Very early in your career you need to shoot things that you believe in, things that you really want to shoot. You need to take risks. Don’t wait for the phone to ring. Success is only going to happen if you are out there really working to make it happen.”

“I believe strongly that a photograph should stand on its own with a story, and without a caption.”

“I had to see what it looked like. I had to shoot whether there was light or whether there wasn’t light.”

There are literally hundreds of songs, poems, paintings, books, that influence us. Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” comes to mind, and Ernst Haas’s photograph “Route 66, Albuquerque.” It’s impossible to delineate how they have influenced me, other than to state they have been imprinted in my mind — the light, the sound, the composition, the color. Out of this “soup” comes something new that may not be directly related to a particular influence, but certainly contains the ingredients of many different influences.

“I’m not out to make photographs in color; my photographs are about the color.”

“Color is my subject as much as the apparent subject.”

“Playing with color is my way to escape the chaos of the world, and to express it.”

“I have no favorite color, but if I did, it would be gray – the perfect neutral that acts in contrast to the colors around it and lets them stand on their own.”

“My work with color and light has become more and more abstract over the past five decades. I’ve explored the way light is used in architecture, and how artists, such as Rothko, use color, both contrasting and complementary, to elicit strong emotional responses; they create a deeply spiritual resonance on a two-dimensional canvas.”

“When I stare at Mark Rothko’s color field paintings, I am transformed as well as transfixed.”

“We ‘see red,’ but how we see it is subjective. We see it in our mind’s eye, as I did this morning, when I heard a cardinal.”

“What is important to me is not what my eye sees but what my mind’s eye sees; it’s that third eye that has blessed me with intention and demanded invention.”

“A print is the photographer’s statement about the light, the mood, the space, the spirit and being of the image, and that interpretation may change with time, with technology, and with the photographer’s own interpretation of the image. A print is the completion of a photograph; without it, the image is suspended in time, without interpretation.” – Eric Meola

 

View 12 Great Photographs by Eric Meola

Read 14 Great Quotes By Photographer Eric Meola.

Read our short Q&A

Read our extended conversation.

Discover more by Eric Meola.

Color! – A Conversation With Eric Meola – Dec 10 @ 8 pm EST

Wednesday, Dec 10 @ 8pm EST

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Creativity Continues at Santa Fe Workshops with a conversation about Color!
Savor a deep dive with two photographic masters, Eric Meola and John Paul Caponigro.

Our hour of inspiration will begin with a short presentation of images.

Next, Eric and John Paul will share and discuss their insights about color. After hearing their insights about how other artists use color and how they use color, you’ll leave inspired to explore how you use color (even if you’re a black and white photographer).

Finally, we’ll finish with a lively question-and-answer session open to all participants.

Color is such a deep subject, and these artists’ passion for color is so strong, it’s sure to run long.

Join Santa Fe Workshops’ worldwide community of photographers and writers as Creativity Continues.
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Photographer Eric Meola’s new book, BENDING LIGHT: The Moods of Color, showcases his use of light and color throughout his career. In a five-decade career that defines the use of color as art, Meola examines the history of color and redefines it in the medium of photography. In dozens of stories and anecdotes, he recounts his journey using color, its symbolism, and how it affects our moods. “Light and color are my subject as much as the subject itself. They resonate with our moods, reflect our emotions, and define the way we see.”

Eric Meola studied photography at the Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse University and graduated with a B.A. in English Literature. Meola’s photographs are included in the archive of the American Society of Media Photographers, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography in New York, and the George Eastman Museum. His previous books include Last Places on Earth (GRAPHIS, 2004), Born to Run: The Unseen Photos (Insight Editions, 2006), INDIA: In Word & Image (Welcome Books, 2008), and FIERCE BEAUTY: Storms of the Great Plains (IMAGES Publishing, 2019). He has received numerous awards, including “Advertising Photographer of the Year” in 1986 from the American Society of Media Photographers, a “Power of the Image” George Eastman award in 2014, and, in 2023, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Photographers of America.

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View 12 Great Photographs by Eric Meola

Read 14 Great Quotes By Photographer Eric Meola.

Read our short Q&A

Read our extended conversation.

Discover more by Eric Meola.

 

20 Questions With Photographer Eric Meola

© Eric Meola

Enjoy our video Conversation Color!

View 12 Great Photographs by Eric Meola

Read 14 Great Quotes By Photographer Eric Meola.

Read our short Q&A

Read our extended conversation.

Discover more by Eric Meola.

Eric Meola provides quick, candid answers to 20 questions.

As an undergraduate at Syracuse University, he studied color printing and color theory at the Newhouse School of Journalism before graduating in 1968 with a B.A. in English Literature and then moving to NYC in 1969 to work with Pete Turner as his studio manager. A Canon “Explorer of Light,” he has lectured extensively, including at Syracuse University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Brooks (Santa Barbara), the Art Center at Pasadena, Parsons, the Academy of Art College (San Francisco), the George Eastman House, and venues including PPA., WPPI, and A.S.M.P.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?
Never stop looking.

What’s the best thing about photography?
Mistakes.

What’s the worst thing about photography?
Mistakes.

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Generative Upscale In Photoshop

“In this video, you’ll discover the advantage of using the new Generative Upscale feature in Photoshop when increasing the size of an image using Firefly Upscale, Topaz Gigapixel, and Topaz Bloom.”

View more from Julianne Kost.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Photoshop’s Generative Fill Adds Two New Partner Models – Nano Banana and Flux Kontext Pro

Julianne Kost walks you through the latest update in the Photoshop Beta—where you can now combine the power of two new partner models in Photoshop’s Generative Fill workflow: Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano Banana) and Flux Kontext Pro. You’ll see step-by-step examples of how to:

Change object colors with natural prompts
Replace backgrounds while preserving key details
Edit and replace text in a photograph
Explore creative style transfers like Cubism, Vector, Anime, and more
Composite multiple photos together for unique results

View more from Julianne Kost.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

All Of Adobe Photoshop 2026’s New Features Covered In Detail

Photoshop just received a major update. Colin Smith shows you how to use the most important new features in Photoshop 2026.

00:00 Intro and Announcement
00:38 Remove background and select subject update
01:40 Harmonize
02:25 Generative Upscale, Topaz Gigapixel included
04:48 Partner Models in Generative Fill, Nano banana
06:31 Color and Vibrance

Tour Photoshop 2026’s new features with two digital gurus.

 

Find out more from Colin Smith at Photoshop Cafe.

Watch more from Matt Kloskowski here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

5 New Updates for Adobe Camera Raw 2026

“In this video, Julieanne walks through the new features in Camera Raw v18, including automatic dust removal, improved reflection removal, better object detection, new landscape masking options, and an update for editing images to be displayed on HDR displays.”

View more from Julianne Kost.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Lightroom 2026’s New Features Showcased By 3 Digital Gurus

Tour Lightroom’s 2026’s new features with three digital gurus.

First, Colin Smith shows you how to use new features in Lightroom.

00:00 Intro
00:26 Assisted Culling
07:21 Shadow and reflection in Remove Object
08:18 Dust Removal
09:27 Updated Reflection Removal
10:28 Point Color Variance With landscape photos
11:49 Color Variance with Portrait photos
12:49 Snow in Landscape Masks
13:13 New Color Spaces
13:46 Video and Slideshows in 4K
14:06 Outro

Second, Julianne Kost shows 15 new features.

Third, Matt Koslowski shows his favorite new features.

Find out more from Colin Smith at Photoshop Cafe.

View more from Julianne Kost.

Watch more from Matt Kloskowski here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.