Favourite Photography quotes

ElfoZA

ElfoZA

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Ryan Douglas
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Hey Everyone,

So when I started photography. I had some friends that gave me some quotes.

When I went through my first, I need to buy every lens known to man and someone told me, the most important part of photography is the 2cm behind the viewfinder.

And the other most profound to me when I started is your first 100 000 shots is where you learn.
I also had my dad always giving me grief about leaving too much space above the head. I went back and looked at those photos and my portfolio and I'm proud of myself.

Then my new one, the most important. The best camera is the one that you actually carry with you.
I do wish I had a full frame camera with all the fancy lenses but would I actually carry it with me? No too heavy.

Please share some of your quotes or sayings that gave you some hope.
 
www.johnpaulcaponigro.com

Photographers on Photography – Quotes - John Paul Caponigro

We can all learn a lot from the photographers who make the classic photographs. They’re inspiring! Sam Abell Berenice Abbott Ansel Adams Robert Adams Diane Arbus Richard Avedon Richard Benson Ruth Bernhard Bill Brandt Christopher Burkett Harry Callahan Julia Margaret Cameron Keith Carter Henri...
www.johnpaulcaponigro.com www.johnpaulcaponigro.com

This contains loads of quotes - I have a tab on my Web browser always open here...

Might I also suggest artist's quotes as well as sources of inspiration and provoking thought.

P.S. My signature is 2 artists to 1 photographer.

P.P.S. Not in my signature, but I have a fondness for Edward Steichen's " no photographer is as good as the simplest camera".
 
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This is one from Michael Kenna that I found in an interview of his. It’s a bit long, but hits the nail on the head for me as a black and white photographer:

I prefer the power of suggestion over description. Photography, for me, is not about copying the world. I’m not really interested in making an accurate copy of what I see out there. I think one of photography’s strongest elements is its ability to record a part of the world, but also to integrate with the individual photographer’s aesthetic sense. The combined result is an interpretation – and the interpretation, I think, is what is interesting – when the subject goes through the filter of an individual human mind and emerges in a changed state – not the duplication or the recording of something.
 
"The real world is infinitely more interesting than anything you try to invent in a studio." Paul Reas

"f8 and be there." Weegee (attrib.)

"...finding new ideas cannot be brought entirely under rational control. Acknowledgement of the limitations of that control, ironically, may be a necessary preliminary to the creative process." Ed Smith

"Don't call yourself an artist." Daniel Meadows.

Three photographers and a cricketer! :D
 
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The technology may have moved on a bit, but I liked the quote along the lines of "Asking a photographer what brand of camera they used is like asking an author what brand of typewriter they used."
 
Contax said:
The technology may have moved on a bit, but I liked the quote along the lines of "Asking a photographer what brand of camera they used is like asking an author what brand of typewriter they used."
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Reminds me of the old(?) saying.....to a Chef......

'Wow! lovely meal, you must a great set of pans'

NB variations of the theme/phrase are often seen :)
 
"Crop a third off the top and 2 thirds off the bottom and you've got the makings of a good image" - a competition judge commenting on one of my images when I first started photography.
To be fair, he did go on to say that the composition was acceptable but my choice of aperture and shutter speed left a lot to be desired.
He asked me to meet up with him at the weekend and explained the exposure triangle and pointed me in the right direction.
This was around 40 years ago and i really appreciated his honesty and his free tuition.
 
Robert Capa's words "if your photos aren't good enough, you're not close enough" resonate with me for action work.

GC
 
"A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity"

George Bernard Shaw
 
"Bu99er!" - pretty much all of us at one point or another (or, indeed, several!!!)
 
Nod said:
"Bu99er!" - pretty much all of us at one point or another (or, indeed, several!!!)
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Oh yes and although I've been aware of the Ansel Adams quote I posted at #6 for many years, I'm often aware, as I review a day's shots, I'm an expert in the fuzzy concept.

Dave
 
One a friend of mine likes to quote from time to time - I think he read it in Nat Geo:

"If you don't like your photographs, go stand in front of something more interesting"
 
Latin mode on

Technically, that should be "veni vidi, pinxi" (pingo, I draw, paint etc. with pinxi as the perfect tense).

Latin mode off
 
The old saw about the camera in your hand being the best camera in the world can be subverted easily by saying that it is also the worst.
 
I always liked "the camera always lies" because "the camera never lies" is nonsense
 
It doesn't matter if it's the best camera in the world, it's no use to a blind man.

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
 
Googling "blind photographers" suggests that cameras are of use to a fair few blind men (and indeed women!)
 
Nod said:
Googling "blind photographers" suggests that cameras are of use to a fair few blind men (and indeed women!)
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I've been puzzled by that term for many years.

Surely they mean "visually impaired"? I just can't imagine how a totally blind person could frame an image or relate to photography.
 
“There is nothing to understand, only something to see”
 
Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn’t photogenic...........Edward Weston
 
Of course there's no film in in Dear. Would I be taking pictures like these of you if there was?
 
“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” Diane Arbus

“Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” Elliott Erwitt

“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” Imogen Cunningham
 
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