On Photography “Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
Notebook. No photographer should be without one
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don’t have film.
—Anonymous
I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.
—Diane Arbus (1923–71) American Photographer
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
Anonymous Senseless photographers practice random acts of beauty; intelligent photographers practice consistent acts of selflessness.
—Unknown
That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
If you’re photographing in color you show the color of their clothes – if you use black and white, you will show the color of their soul.
—Indian Proverb
Most modern reproducers of life, even including the camera, really repudiate it. We gulp down evil, choke at good.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
Photography is my one recreation and I think it should be done well.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1832–98) British Anglican Author, Mathematician, Clergyman, Photographer, Logician
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
—Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) American Documentary Photographer
A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph—only less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious ones.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
You don’t take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it.
—Indian Proverb
I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
—John Steinbeck (1902–68) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist
Photography is 90% sheer, brutal drudgery!
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
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 (1908–2004) French Photographer, Journalist
Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
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 (1908–2004) French Photographer, Journalist
A photograph is usually looked at—seldom looked into.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
The Equipment you’ll leave at home, you’ll need the most. You’re always out of film when you’ll have the best opportunity.
—Unknown
To the complaint, ‘There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, ‘There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth.
—Harold Evans (1925–2020) British-American Journalist, Writer
If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
For half a century, photography has been the art form of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than others, but where is credit due? To the designer of the camera? To the finger on the button? To the law of averages?
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do—that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.
—Diane Arbus (1923–71) American Photographer
I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it.
—Indian Proverb
You know what a camera is? A mirror with memory.
—Unknown
For me, photographs take their power from memory and emotion. A picture tells its own story, shaped by the mood or insights of the person you are at the time you see it. It becomes layered with the past and the present. It need not be of people you k
—Unknown
While 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 to see.
—Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) American Documentary Photographer
A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.
—George A. Tice
Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
—Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) American Documentary Photographer
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Photographs are perhaps the most mysterious of all the objects that make up, and thicken, the environment we recognize as modern. Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads—as an anthology of images
—Rick Steves (b.1955) American Travel Writer, Entrepreneur, Activist
You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
The most refined skills of color printing, the intricate techniques of wide-angle photography, provide us pictures of trivia bigger and more real than life. We forget that we see trivia and notice only that the reproduction is so good. Man fulfils his dream and by photographic magic produces a precise image of the Grand Canyon. The result is not that he adores nature or beauty the more. Instead he adores his camera—and himself.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.
—Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American Novelist Essayist
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.
—Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) American Documentary Photographer
I think you have to have a real point of view that’s your own. You have to tell it your way. And, I think that it’s a mistake to shoot for a specific magazine’s point of view because it’s never going to be as good. You have to shoot for yourself and photograph the way you believe it.
—Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015) American Photojournalist
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher