A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I’d like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph.
—Annie Leibovitz (b.1949) American Photographer
Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
Every time someone tells me how sharp my photos are, I assume that it isn’t a very interesting photograph. If it were, they would have more to say.
—Indian Proverb
These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago… I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me
—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
The photographic image … is a message without a code.
—Roland Barthes (1915–80) French Writer, Critic, Teacher
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
A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.
—Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American Short Story Writer, Novelist
Photography is 90% sheer, brutal drudgery!
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, “I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life.” I mean people are going to say, “You’re crazy.” Plus they’re going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that’s a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.
—Diane Arbus (1923–71) American Photographer
A photograph is a portrait painted by the sun.
—Indian Proverb
Photograph is a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
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
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
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
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
Notebook. No photographer should be without one
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: “Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print – my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey – from the subject before me?
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
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
The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!
—Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French Photographer, Journalist
This is a perfect world
I’m riding on an incline
I’m staring in your face
You’ll photograph mine
—Roland Barthes (1915–80) French Writer, Critic, Teacher
Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The term accessories has come to include a host of photographic gadgets of questionable value…
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
The difficulty with color is to go beyond the fact that it’s color—to have it be not just a colorful picture but really be a picture about something. It’s difficult. So often color gets caught up in color, and it becomes merly decorative. Some photographers use it brilliantly to make visual statements combining color and content; otherwise it is empty.
—Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015) American Photojournalist
Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.
—Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French Photographer, Journalist