23 Quotes By Photographer Andreas Feininger

 
Here’s a collection of my favorite quotes by photographer Andreas Feininger.
“Photographers — idiots, of which there are so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest.” – Andreas Feininger
“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
“Experience has shown that the more fascinating the subject, the less observant the photographer.” – Andreas Feininger
“Two factors thus emerge as requisites of success in the field of creative photography. First, the subject must be photogenic. Second, its re-creation in a photograph must be based upon technical knowledge, guided and supported by artistic inspiration.” – Andreas Feininger
“Human vision is untrustworthy, subjective and selective. Camera vision is total and non – objective.” – Andreas Feininger
“Once a photographer is convinced that the camera can lie and that, strictly speaking, the vast majority of photographs are “camera lies,” inasmuch as they tell only part of a story or tell it in distorted form, half the battle is won. Once he has conceded that photography is not a naturalistic medium of rendition and that striving for “naturalism” in a photograph is futile, he can turn his attention to using a camera to make more effective pictures.
“The first impression of a new subject is not necessary the best. Seen from a different angle or under different condition it might look even better. Always study a three – dimensional subject with one eye closed.” – Andreas Feininger
“Don’t look for “depth” but instead search for subject aspects which prove the presence of depth.” – Andreas Feininger
“Before you shoot an irresistible subject, mute all your senses except sight to find out how much is left for the camera to record.” – Andreas Feininger
“(1) The more thoroughly a photographer explores his subject with the camera (i.e., the more pictures he makes), the more he sees and the better his chance of getting good results.
(2) Even slight changes in subject approach can make significant differences in the effect of the picture.” – Andreas Feininger
“The difference in “seeing” between the eye and the lens should make it obvious that a photographer who merely points his camera at an appealing subject and expects to get an appealing picture in return, may be headed for a disappointment.” – Andreas Feininger
“As an amateur you have an advantage over photographers – you can do as you wish… This should make amateurs the happiest of photographers.” – Andreas Feininger
“Every successful photograph, except for lucky shots, begins with an idea and a plan. The more precisely a photographer knows what it is he wishes to do, the better the chances are that he will do it.” – Andreas Feininger
“Realism and superrealism are what I’m after. This world is full of things the eye doesn’t see. The camera can see more, and often 10 times better.” – Andreas Feininger
“With a short lens I can reveal the hidden things near at hand, with a long lens the hidden things far away. The telephoto lens provides a new visual sensation for people: it widens their horizons. And, conversely, the things under our nose invariably look good when blown up really big.” – Andreas Feininger
“The camera can push the new medium to its limits – and beyond. It is there – in the “beyond” – that the imaginative photographer will compete with the imaginative painter. Painting must return to the natural world from time to time for renewal of the artistic vision. The key sector of renewal of vision today is the new vistas revealed by science. Here photography, which is not only art but science also, stands on the firmest ground.” – Andreas Feininger
“Any good photograph is a successful synthesis of technique and art.” – Andreas Feininger
“Light is the photographic medium par excellence; it is to the photographer what words are to the writer; color and paint to the painter; wood, metal, stone, or clay to the sculptor.” – Andreas Feininger
“I believe that photography at its best is an Art, and photo-technique is but a means to an end: the creation of the picture. Today, even a fool can learn to operate any of our modern foolproof cameras, and produce technically perfect pictures — but is this knowledge really all he needs for taking purposeful and pictorially exciting photographs? Naturally, as in any other art, there are artists and there are dabblers. If photography really were nothing but the simple and purely mechanical reproduction process the majority of people still think it is, why are there so many dull and meaningless photographs around?” – Andreas Feininger
“A technically perfect photograph can be the world’s most boring picture.” – Andreas Feininger
“Know – how is worthless unless guided by know – why and know – when.” – Andreas Feininger
“No one can do inspired work without genuine interest in his subject and understanding of its characteristics.” – Andreas Feininger
“What matters is not what you photograph, but why and how you photograph it. Even the most controversial subject, if depicted by a sensitive photographer with honesty, sympathy, and understanding, can be transformed into an emotionally rewarding experience.” – Andreas Feininger
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13 Quotes By Photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue

 
Here’s a collection of my favorite quotes by photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue.
“It’s marvelous, marvelous! Nothing will ever be as much fun. I’m going to photograph everything, everything!” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“Photography is a magic thing. A thing that has mysterious odors, a little strange and frightening, something one quickly grows to love.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“Photography is something you learn to love very quickly. I know that many, many things are going to ask me to have their pictures taken and I will take them all.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“I have never taken a picture for any other reason than that at that moment it made me happy to do so.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for myself first and foremost–that is important. If they are art objects at the same time, that’s fine with me.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“What’s so incredibly amusing with photography is that while seemingly an art of the surface, it catches things I haven’t even noticed. And it pains me not to have seen things in all their depth.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“The golden rule is “work fast.” As for framing, composition, focus—this is no time to start asking yourself questions: you just have to trust your intuition and the sharpness of your reflexes.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“I have two pairs of eyes – one to paint and one to take photographs.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“One shouldn’t be only two photographers but thousands.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“I think just about everything has been tackled, but it may be that things will be done again, only better and differently.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
“To talk about photos rather than making them seems idiotic to me. It’s as though I went on and on about a woman I adored instead of making love to her.” – Jacques-Henri Lartigue
1) Never, never be lazy.
2) Know how to eat well; the right foods in small quantities.
3) Know how to sleep well; the sleep that comes after a good day’s work.
4) Know how to appreciate, really appreciate, any good art.
5) Know how to enjoy silence, as well as good music.
6) Open your ears to the ideas and suggestions of God.
7) Love God.
– Jacques-Henri Lartigue (Advice To Young Photographers)
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The Essential Collection Of Quotes By Photographers

PhotoQuotes
We can all learn a lot from the photographers who make the classic photographs.
Here’s a list of links to collections of my favorite quotes by master photographers.
You’ll find them inspiring!
Sam Abell
Berenice Abbott
Ansel Adams
Robert Adams
Diane Arbus
Richard Avedon
Ruth Bernhard
Bill Brandt
Harry Callahan
Keith Carter
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Chuck Close
Wynn Bullock
Edward Burtynsky
John Paul Caponigro
Paul Caponigro
Harold Edgerton
William Eggleston
Alfred Eisendstadt
Elliot Erwitt
Walker Evans
Andreas Feininger
Robert Frank
Lee Friedlander
Emmet Gowin
Ernst Haas
Michael Kenna
Andre Kertesz
Josef Koudelka
David La Chapelle
Jacques-Henri Lartigue
Annie Liebovitz
Jay Maisel
Sally Mann
Robert Mapplethorpe
Joel Meyerowitz
Richard Misrach
James Nachtwey
Irving Penn
John Pfahl
Eliot Porter
Sebastiao Salgado
John Sexton
Cindy Sherman
Stephen Shore
Aaron Siskind
W Eugene Smith
Fredrick Sommer
Edward Steichen
Alfred Steiglitz
Paul Strand
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Joyce Tenneson
George Tice
Jerry Uelsmann
Andy Warhol
Edward Weston
Weegee
Minor White
Gary Winogrand

Read new additions to this collection here.
View The Essential Collection Of Documentaries On Photographers Online here.
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18 Quotes By Photographer Bill Brandt

 
Here’s a collection of my favorite quotes by photographer Bill Brandt.
“It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.” – Bill Brandt
“It is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual’s temperament and environment.” – Bill Brandt
“Most photographers would feel a certain embarrassment in admitting publicly that they carried within them a sense of wonder, yet without it they would not produce the work they do, whatever their particular field.” – Bill Brandt
“The good photographer will produce a competent picture every time whatever his subject. But only when his subject makes and immediate and direct appeal to his own interests will he produce a work of distinction.” – Bill Brandt
“It is essential for the photographer to know the effect of his lenses. The lens is his eye, and it makes or ruins his pictures. A feeling for composition is a great asset. I think it is very much a matter of instinct. It can perhaps be developed, but I doubt if it can be learned. To achieve his best work, the young photographer must discover what really excites him visually. He must discover his own world.” – Bill Brandt
“A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere.” – Bill Brandt
“If there is any method in the way I take pictures, I believe it lies in this. See the subject first. Do not try to force it to be a picture of this, that or the other thing. Stand apart from it. Then something will happen. The subject will reveal itself.” – Bill Brandt
“By temperament I am not unduly excitable and certainly not trigger-happy. I think twice before I shoot and very often do not shoot at all. By professional standards I do not waste a lot of film; but by the standards of many of my colleagues I probably miss quite a few of my opportunities. Still, the things I am after are not in a hurry as a rule.” – Bill Brandt
“But I did not always know just what it was I wanted to photograph. I believe it is important for a photographer to discover this, for unless he finds what it is that excites him, what it is that calls forth at once an emotional response, he is unlikely to achieve his best work.” – Bill Brandt
“Sometimes they are a matter of luck; the photographer could not expect or hope for them. Sometimes they are a matter of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that he has seen and lost or for one that he anticipates.” – Bill Brandt
“I am not very interested in extraordinary angles. They can be effective on certain occasions, but I do not feel the necessity for them in my own work. Indeed, I feel the simplest approach can often be most effective. A subject placed squarely in the centre of the frame, if attention is not distracted from it by fussy surroundings, has a simple dignity which makes it all the more impressive.” – Bill Brandt
“Photographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others.” – Bill Brandt
“And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment.” – Bill Brandt
“I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations.” – Bill Brandt
“No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.” – Bill Brandt
“Photography is not a sport. It has no rules.” – Bill Brandt
“Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.” – Bill Brandt
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14 Quotes By Photographer Andre Kertesz

 
Here’s a selection of my favorite quotes by photographer Andre Kertesz.
“I am an amateur and I intend to stay that way for the rest of my life.” – Andre Kertesz
“I do what I feel, that’s all, I am an ordinary photographer working for his own pleasure. That’s all I’ve ever done.” – Andre Kertesz
“Photography is my only language.” – Andre Kertesz
“The camera is my tool. Through it I give a reason to everything around me.” – Andre Kertesz
“Everything is a subject. Every subject has a rhythm. To feel it is the raison d’être. The photograph is a fixed moment of such a raison d’être, which lives on in itself.” – Andre Kertesz
“I am a lucky man. I can do something with almost anything I see. Everything is still interesting to me.” – Andre Kertesz
“I can’t talk about my style. It us kind of difficult for me. I don’t like styles. I only like taking photos and expressing myself through them.” – Andre Kertesz
“If you want to write you should learn the alphabet. You write and write and in the end you hava a beautiful, perfect alphabet. But it isn’t the alphabed that is important. The important thing is what you are writing, what you are expressing. The same thing goes for photography. Photographs can be technically perfect and even beautiful, but they have no expression.” – Andre Kertesz
“Technique isn’t important. Technique is in the blood. Events and mood are more important than good light and the happening is what is important.”- Andre Kertesz
“The moment always dictates in my work. What I feel, I do. This is the most important thing for me, Everybody can look, but they don’t necessarily see. I never calculate or consider; I see a situation and I know that it’s right, even if I have to go back to get the proper lighting.”- Andre Kertesz
“I am an amateur and intend to remain one my whole life long. I attribute to photography the task of recording the real nature of things, their interior, their life. The photographer’s art is a continuous discovery which requires patience and time. A photograph draws its beauty from the truth with which it’s marked. For this very reason I refuse all the tricks of the trade and professional virtuosity which could make me betray my career. As soon as I find a subject which interests me, I leave it to the lens to record it truthfully. Look at the reporters and at the amateur photographer! They both have only one goal; to record a memory or a document. And that is pure photography. – Andre Kertesz
“The most valuable things in a life are a man’s memories. And they are priceless.” – Andre Kertesz
“I do not document anything, I give an interpretation.” – Andre Kertesz
“Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph.” – Andre Kertesz
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25 Quotes By Sculptor/Photographer Andy Goldsworthy

 
Here’s a selection of my favorite quotes by sculptor/photographer Andy Goldsworthy.
“My work comes first, reasons for it follow“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Ideas must be put to the test. That’s why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realization. I’ve had what I thought were great ideas that just didn’t work.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Not being able to touch is sometimes as interesting as being able to touch.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Confrontation is something that I accept as part of the project though not its purpose.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Photography is a way of putting distance between myself and the work which sometimes helps me to see more clearly what it is that I have made.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Movement, change, light, growth, and decay are the life-blood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“You must have something new in a landscape as well as something old, something that’s dying and something that’s being born.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.” ― Andy Goldsworthy
“The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“I have worked with this red all over the world – in Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia – a vein running round the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“A stone is ingrained with geological and historical memories.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“As with all my work, whether it’s a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I’m trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Fire is the origin of stone.By working the stone with heat, I am returning it to its source.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“Once the fired stone is out of the kiln, it is still possible to mentally reconstruct it in its original form.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“It’s frightening and unnerving to watch a stone melt.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“The hardened mass of liquid stones had much stronger qualities than those which had simply torn. The skin remained a recognisable part of the molten stone.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“The stones tear like flesh, rather than breaking. Although what happens is violent, it is a violence that is in stone. A tear is more unnerving than a break.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“I soon realised that what had happened on a small scale cannot necessarily be repeated on a larger scale. The stones were so big that the amount of heat required was prohibitively expensive and wasteful.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“I’m cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“A snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. I use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels.” – Andy Goldsworthy
“I have walked around the same streets so many times, and then seen a place that had been hidden to me. I now know the sites in a way that makes me think I could have made better use of the connections between place and snowball.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city, and I do not mean its parks but a deeper understanding that a city is nature too-the ground upon which it is built, the stone with which it is made.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“I am not a performer but occasionally I deliberately work in a public context. Some sculptures need the movement of people around them to work.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
“People also leave presence in a place even when they are no longer there.“ – Andy Goldsworthy
Read more Photographer’s Quotes here.

20 Quotes By Photographer Weegee

 
Here’s a collection of quotes by the inimitable photographer Weegee.
“My name is Weegee. I’m the world’s greatest photographer…” – Weegee
“I am a perfectionist. When I take a picture…it’s gotta be good.” – Weegee
“Weegee often said that he was, ‘A natural-born photographer, with hypo in my blood.” – Weegee
“Sure. I’d like to live regular. Go home to a good looking wife, a hot dinner, and a husky kid. But I guess I got film in my blood. I love this racket. It’s exciting. It’s dangerous. It’s funny. It’s tough. It’s heartbreaking.” – Weegee
“It’s been a strange [summer]…. I was sent by a magazine to photograph famous photographers…. Of course, I included myself.” – Weegee
“A good assignment to me is a good picture and a date. When I leave town I put a tablet in front of the girl’s house (as with George Washington): Weegee slept here.” – Weegee
“I’m no part time dilettante photographer, unlike the bartenders, shoe salesmen, floorwalkers plumbers, barbers, grocery clerks and chiropractors whose great hobby is their camera. All their friends rave about what wonderful pictures they take. If they’re so good, why don’t they take pictures full—time, for a living, and make floor walking, chiropractics, etc., their hobby? But everyone wants to play it safe. They’re afraid to give up their pay checks and their security they might miss a meal.” – Weegee
“If I had a picture of two handcuffed criminals being booked, I would cut the picture in half and get five bucks for each.” – Weegee
“To me a photograph is a page from life, and that being the case, it must be real.” – Weegee
“Many photographers live in a dream world of beautiful backgrounds. It wouldn’t hurt them to get a taste of reality to wake them up.” – Weegee
“Anyone who looks for life can find it… and they don’t need to photograph ashcans. The average camera fan reminds me of Pollyanna, with a lollypop in one hand and a camera in the other. You can’t be a Nice Nelly and take news pictures.” – Weegee
“There are photographic fanatics, just as there are religious fanatics. They buy a so-called candid camera… there is no such thing: it’s the photographer who has to be candid, not the camera.” – Weegee
“I had so many unsold murder pictures lying around my room…I felt as if I were renting out a wing of the City Morgue.” – Weegee
“I have no chips on my shoulder. I like to be constructive. As I have said, I have inspired many persons to take up photography. As a matter of fact, I inspire myself. (When I take a good picture I give myself a bonus.).” – Weegee
“So, keep your eyes open. If you see anything, take it. Remember – you’re as good as your last picture. One day you’re hero, the next day you’re a bum…” – Weegee
“News photography teaches you to think fast.” – Weegee
“To me, pictures are like blintzes – ya gotta get ‘em while they’re hot.” – Weegee
“When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you are on the right track.” – Weegee
“People are so wonderful that a photographer has only to wait for that breathless moment to capture what he wants on film.” – Weegee
“What I did, anybody can do.” – Weegee
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20 Quotes By Photographer Cindy Sherman

 
Here’s a collection of quotes by photographer Cindy Sherman.
“We’re all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don’t spend any time, or think they don’t, on preparing themselves for the world out there – I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world.” – Cindy Sherman
“I feel I’m anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren’t self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.” – Cindy Sherman
“I’ll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I’m really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.” – Cindy Sherman
“Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren’t meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.” – Cindy Sherman
“The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.” – Cindy Sherman
“I am always surprised at all the things people read into my photos, but it also amuse me. That may be because I have nothing specific in mind when I’m working. My intentions are neither feminist nor political. I try to put double or multiple meanings into my photos, which might give rise to a greater variety of interpretations…” – Cindy Sherman
“Some people have told me they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all.” – Cindy Sherman
“I didn’t think of what I was doing as political. To me it was a way to make the best out of what I liked to do privately, which was to dress up.” – Cindy Sherman
“I’m really just using the mirror to summon something I don’t even know until I see it.” – Cindy Sherman
“If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already.. the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.” – Cindy Sherman
“My ideas are not developed before I actually do the pieces.” – Cindy Sherman
“The way I see it, as soon as I make a piece I’ve lost control of it.” – Cindy Sherman
“I don’t analyze what I’m doing. I’ve read convincing interpretations of my work, and sometimes I’ve noticed something that I wasn’t aware of, but I think, at this point, people read into my work out of habit. Or I’m just very, very smart.” – Cindy Sherman
“Every time you have to come up with a new body of work for a new show, you’re aware that people are just ready to rip you apart, they’re just waiting for you to fall or make the slightest trip up.” – Cindy Sherman
“Believing in one’s own art becomes harder and harder when the public response grows fonder.” – Cindy Sherman
“People think because it’s photography it’s not worth as much, and because it’s a woman artist, you’re still not getting as much – there’s still definitely that happening. I’m still really competitive when it comes to, I guess, the male painters and male artists. I still think that’s really unfair.” – Cindy Sherman
“The work is what it is and hopefully it’s seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I’m not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff.” – Cindy Sherman
“I didn’t want to make “high” art, I had no interest in using paint, I wanted to find something that anyone could relate to without knowing about contemporary art. I wasn’t thinking in terms of precious prints or archival quality; I didn’t want the work to seem like a commodity.” – Cindy Sherman
“One reason I was interested in photography was to get away from the preciousness of the art object.” – Cindy Sherman
“I didn’t have any interest in traditional art.” – Cindy Sherman
Read more Quotes By Photographers here.

29 Quotes By Photographer Henri Cartier Bresson

 
Here’s a selection of  my favorite quotes by photographer Henri Cartier Bresson.
“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson
“A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“The picture is good or not from the moment it was caught in the camera.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Photography is, for me, a spontaneous impulse coming from an ever attentive eye which captures the moment and its eternity.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.”
“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven’t left any holes, that you’ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography; composition should be a constant of preoccupation, being a simultaneous coalition – an organic coordination of visual elements.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?” ­- Henri Cartier-Bresson
“While we’re working, we must be conscious of what we’re doing.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“As time passes by and you look at portraits, the people come back to you like a silent echo. A photograph is a vestige of a face, a face in transit. Photography has something to do with death. It’s a trace.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing.”- Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“The intensive use of photographs by mass media lays ever fresh responsibilities upon the photographer. We have to acknowledge the existence of a chasm between the economic needs of our consumer society and the requirements of those who bear witness to this epoch. This affects us all, particularly the younger generations of photographers. We must take greater care than ever not to allow ourselves to be separated from the real world and from humanity.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“You just have to live and life will give you pictures.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Of course it’s all luck.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
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18 Quotes By Photographer Joel Meyerowitz

 
Here’s a collection of my favorite quotes by Joel Meyerowitz.
“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
“I think about photographs as being full, or empty. You picture something in a frame and it’s got lots of accounting going on in it–stones and buildings and trees and air – but that’s not what fills up a frame. You fill up the frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“What I think is so extraordinary about the photograph is that we have a piece of paper with this image adhered to it, etched on it, which interposes itself into the plane of time that we are actually in at that moment. Even if it comes from as far back as 150 years ago, or as recently as yesterday, or a minute before as a Polaroid color photograph, suddenly you bring it into your experience. You look at it, and all around the real world is humming, buzzing and moving, and yet in this little frame there is stillness that looks like the world. That connection, that collision, that interfacing, is one of the most astonishing things we can experience.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“[The small camera] taught me energy and decisiveness and immediacy … The large camera taught me reverence, patience, and meditation.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“I find it strangely beautiful that the camera with its inherent clarity of object and detail can produce images that in spite of themselves offer possibilities to be more than they are … a photograph of nothing very important at all, nothing but an intuition, a response, a twitch from the photographer’s experience.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“Making any statement of your feelings is risky. It’s just like making pictures.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“A lot of what I am looking for is a moment of astonishment,” he says. “Those moments of pure consciousness when you involuntarily inhale and say ‘Wow!’ – Joel Meyerowitz
“We all experience it. Those moments when we gasp and say, “Oh, look at that.” Maybe it’s nothing more than the way a shadow glides across a face, but in that split second, when you realize something truly remarkable is happening and disappearing right in front of you, if you can pass a camera before your eye, you’ll tear a piece of time out of the whole, and in a breath, rescue it and give it new meaning.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“I have to say, taking photographs is such an instantaneous act. The recognition and the acting on the recognition, depending on your equipment, is close to instantaneous.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“Photography is a response that has to do with the momentary recognition of things. Suddenly you’re alive. A minute later there was nothing there. I just watched it evaporate. You look one moment and there’s everything, next moment it’s gone. Photography is very philosophical.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“They [photographs] teach you about your own unraveling past, or about the immediacy of yesterday. They show you what you look at. If you take a photograph, you’ve been responsive to something, and you looked hard at it. Hard for a thousandth of a second, hard for ten minutes. But hard, nonetheless. And it’s the quality of that bite that teaches you how connected you were to that thing, and where you stood in relation to it, then and now.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“You know, he (Winogrand) set a tempo on the street so strong that it was impossible not to follow it. It was like jazz. You just had to get in the same groove… You know, if you hesitate, forget it. You don’t have to learn to unleash that. It was like having a hair trigger. Sometimes walking down the street, wanting to make a picture, I would be so anticipatory, so anxious, that I would just have to fire the camera, to let fly a picture, in order to release the energy, so that I could recock it. That’s what you got from Garry. It came off him in waves – to be keyed up, eager, excited for pictures in that way.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“It comes down to risk, again and again. If you risk coming out, if you risk making pictures that aren’t good, you might discover something in a photograph that is the key. The very doorway to your own interest.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“’Tough’ meant it was an uncompromising image, something that came from your gut, out of instinct, raw, of the moment, something that couldn’t be described in any other way. So it was tough. Tough to like, tough to see, tough to make, tough to understand. The tougher they were the more beautiful they became.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“I had to learn to identify what it was exactly I was responding to, and if my response was any good. The only way to do that is to take pictures, print them, look hard at them and discuss them with other people.” – Joel Meyerowitz
”It’s appetite. You have to be hungry for these things to see it.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“I believe that street photography is central to the issue of photography—that it is purely photographic, whereas the other genres, such as landscape and portrait photography, are a little more applied, more mixed in the with the history of painting and other art forms.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“What is the art experience about? Really, I’m not interested in making “Art” at all. I never, ever, think about it. To say the word “Art”, it’s almost like a curse on art. I do know that I want to try to get closer to myself. The older I get, the more indications I have about what it is to get closer to yourself. You try less hard. I just want to be.” – Joel Meyerowitz
“It’s (photography) me asking myself: ‘How interesting is this medium? And how interesting can I make it for me? And, by the way, who the fuck am I?'”
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