The term accessories has come to include a host of photographic gadgets of questionable value…
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.
—Ansel Adams
If photography were difficult in the true sense … that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching—there would be a vast improvement in total output.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Performance
Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
Some photographers take reality…and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
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
Topics: Photography
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
I am always surprised when I see several cameras, a gaggle on lenses, filters, meters, et cetera, rattling around in a soft bag with a complement of refuse and dust. Sometimes the professional is the worst offender!
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
We who are gathered here may represent a particular delete, not of money and power, but of concern for the earth for the earth’s sake.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Wilderness
A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: One liners, Photography
To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography, One liners
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
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
Topics: Photography
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Wildlife
Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Creation
Notebook. No photographer should be without one
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
A good photograph is knowing where to stand
—Ansel Adams
Topics: One liners, Photography
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer—and often the supreme disappointment.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Wisdom, Discovery
A photograph is usually looked at—seldom looked into.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: One liners, Photography
I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term—meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching—there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Art, Photography
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
Topics: Photography
Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
To the complaint, ‘There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, ‘There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.
—Ansel Adams
Topics: Photography
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Duke Ellington American Musician
- Wendell Berry American Author, Environmentalist
- Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
- Maria Mitchell American Astronomer
- Douglas R. Hofstadter American Scientist, Author
- John Cage American Composer
- Rachel Carson American Biologist
- Walter H. Annenberg American Publisher
- Sandra Day O’Connor American Jurist
- B. B. King American Blues Musician
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