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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26 Quotes By Photographer W Eugene Smith

 
Here’s a selection of my favorite quotes by photographer W. Eugene Smith.
“Available light is any damn light that is available!” – W. Eugene Smith
“Negatives are the notebooks, the jottings, the false starts, the whims, the poor drafts, and the good draft but never the completed version of the work… The print and a proper one is the only completed photograph, whether it is specifically shaded for reproduction, or for a museum wall.” – W. Eugene Smith
“[I crop ] for the benefit of the pictures. The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.” – W. Eugene Smith
“Hardening of the categories causes art disease.” – W. Eugene Smith
“Most photographers seem to operate with a pane of glass between themselves and their subjects. They just can’t get inside and know the subject.” – W. Eugene Smith
“What uses having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?” – W. Eugene Smith
“Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors.” – W. Eugene Smith
“The purpose of all art is to cause a deep and emotion, also one that is entertaining or pleasing. Out of the depth and entertainment comes value.” – W. Eugene Smith
“I’ve never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.” – W. Eugene Smith
“An artist must be ruthlessly selfish.” – W. Eugene Smith
“In music I still prefer the minor key, and in printing I like the light coming from the dark. I like pictures that surmount the darkness, and many of my photographs are that way. It is the way I see photographically. For practical reasons, I think it looks better in print too.” – W. Eugene Smith
“My pictures are complex and so am I.” – W. Eugene Smith
“I am constantly torn between the attitude of the conscientious journalist who is a recorder and interpreter of the facts and of the creative artist who often is necessarily at poetic odds with the literal facts.” – W. Eugene Smith,
“Up to and including the moment of exposure, the photographer is working in an undeniably subjective way. By his choice of technical approach, by the selection of the subject matter…and by his decision as to the exact cinematic instant of exposure, he is blending the variables of interpretation into an emotional whole.” – W. Eugene Smith
“The journalistic photographer can have no other than a personal approach; and it is impossible for him to be completely objective. Honest—yes. Objective—no.” – W. Eugene Smith
“I didn’t write the rules. Why would I follow them?” – W. Eugene Smith
“I am an idealist. I often feel I would like to be an artist in an ivory tower. Yet it is imperative that I speak to people, so I must desert that ivory tower. To do this, I am a journalist—a photojournalist. But I am always torn between the attitude of the journalist, who is a recorder of facts, and the artist, who is often necessarily at odds with the facts. My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself…” – W. Eugene Smith
“My photographs at best hold only a small length, but through them I would suggest and criticize and illuminate and try to give compassionate understanding.” – W. Eugene Smith
“The photographer must bear the responsibility for his work and its effect …[for] photographic journalism, because of its tremendous audience reached by publications using it, has more influence on public thinking than any other branch of photography.” – W. Eugene Smith
“… to became neighbours and friends instead of journalists. This is the way to make your finest photographs.” – W. Eugene Smith
“I try to take what voice I have and I give it to those who don’t have one at all.” – W. Eugene Smith
“I would that my photographs might be, not the coverage of a news event, but an indictment of war.” – W. Eugene Smith
“Many claim I am a photographer of tragedy. In the greater sense I am not, for though I often photograph where the tragic emotion is present, the result is almost invariably affirmative.” – W. Eugene Smith
“I can’t stand these damn shows on museum walls with neat little frames, where you look at the images as if they were pieces of art. I want them to be pieces of life!” – W. Eugene Smith
“…and each time I pressed the shutter release it was a shouted condemnation hurled with the hope that the picture might survive through the years, with the hope that they might echo through the minds of men in the future – causing them caution and remembrance and realization.” – W. Eugene Smith
“Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold.” – W. Eugene Smith
Read more Photographer’s Quotes here. 
View more Videos On Photographers here.
Read conversations with photographers here.

The Essential Collection of Documentaries On Photographers Online

PhotoDocumentaries3
It’s insightful to learn about and from the photographers who make the classic photographs.
Here’s a collection of videos on photographers that I’ve enjoyed most.
You’ll find them inspiring!
Where do I recommend you start? With the classics – in red.
Sam Abell | View 
Ansel Adams | View 1 | View 2 | View 3
Robert Adams | View
Diane Arbus| View

Richard Avedon | View

James Balog | View 1 | View 2 | View 3

Ruth Bernhard View
Yann Arthus-Bertrand | View
Phil Borges | View
Bill Brandt | View
Edward Burtinsky | View
John Paul Caponigro | View

Paul Caponigro | View

Harry Callahan | View
Henri Cartier-Bresson  | View 1 | View 2  | View 3  | View 4  | View 5
Chuck Close| View
Anton Corbijn | View
Gregory Crewdson| View
Bruce Davidson | View
William Eggleston | View 1 | View 2

Alfred Eisendstaedt | View
Walker Evans | View
Andreas Feininger | View
Robert Frank | View
Ralph Gibson | View
Laura Gilpin | View

Nan Goldin | View
Emmet Gowin | View
Gregory Heisler | View 1 View 2
David Hockney | View 1 | View 2

Chris James | Coming Soon
Bill Jay | View
Chris Jordan | View
Michael Kenna | View

Sean Kernan | View
Andre Kertesz | View
David LaChapelle | View

Frans Lanting | View
Jacques-Henri Lartigue | View
Annie Leibovitz | View 1 View 2

Jay Maisel | View
Sally Mann | View 1 | View 2 | View 3

Arthur Meyerson | View
Duane Michals | View 1  | View 2

Mary Ellen Mark | View
Steve McCurry | View
Joe McNally | View
Joel Meyerowitz | View
Richard Misrach |  View
Tina Modotti | View

Sarah Moon | View
Edward Muybridge | View
James Nachtwey | View
Arnold Newman | View
Helmut Newton | View

Gordon Parks| View
Martin Parr | View
Eliot Porter | View

Chris Rainier | Coming
Eugene Richards | View
Sebastiao Salgado | View 1 | View 2

John Sexton | View 1 | View 2

Cindy Sherman | View
Stephen Shore | View
Aaron Siskind | View
Eugene Smith | View
Rick Smolan | View
Fredrick Sommer | View
Edward Steichen | View

Alfred Stieglitz | View

Paul Strand | View

Hiroshi Sugimoto | View
Joyce Tenneson | View
George Tice | View
Pete Turner | View

Jerry Uelsmann | View

Nick Veasey | View
Jeff Wall | View
Andy Warhol View
Weegee | View
Edward Weston | View

Kim Weston | View

Garry Winogrand | View
Dan Winters | View
Huntington Witherill | View 1 | View 2

Art Wolfe | View

View new additions to this collection here.
Read The Essential Collection Of Photographer’s Quotes here.
Read my conversations Photographers On Photography here.

David LaChapelle – Portrait Of A Photographer


The colorful world of David LaChapelle’s riotous photographic collaborations is exposed in this documentary.
Visit David LaChapelle’s website here.
Read 18 great quotes by David LaChapelle.
View this documentary on David LaChapelle.

View more 12 Great Photographs collections here.

Explore The Essential Collection Of Quotes By Photographers.
Explore The Essential Collection Of Documentaries On Photographers

David Hockney – Joiners – Documentary


English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. David Hockney has at the forefront of issues of representation in art for decades. His photo-collages (“joiners”) have become iconic while his theories of the use of technology in advancing the practices of representation throughout the history of western art are provocative and controversial.

View more Videos On Photographers here.
Read conversations with photographers here.