W. Eugene Smith Quotes

Quotes about:

• Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Photography, Voice, Groups

  W. Eugene Smith (1981). “W. Eugene Smith, master of the photographic essay”

  74 Copy quote

• What use having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?

  W. Eugene Smith

  Feelings, Depth, Use

  26 Copy quote

• The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Photography, Travel, Cameras

  44 Copy quote

• 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

  Photography, Distance, Umpires

  W. Eugene Smith (1969). “W. Eugene Smith, his photographs and notes”

  88 Copy quote

• I try to take what voice I have and I give it to those who don’t have one at all.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Voice, Giving, Trying

  23 Copy quote

• Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Peace, Attitude, Passion

  W. Eugene Smith (1969). “W. Eugene Smith, his photographs and notes”

  42 Copy quote

• Hardening of the categories causes art disease.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Art, Disease, Causes

  47 Copy quote

• I didn’t write the rules. Why would I follow them?

  W. Eugene Smith

  Writing, Photographer

  30 Copy quote

• If I can get them to think, get them to feel, get them to see, then I've done about all that I can as a teacher.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Teacher, Teaching, Thinking

  27 Copy quote

• 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

  Impossible, Photographer, Honest

  24 Copy quote

• You can't photograph if you're not in love.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Photograph, Ifs

  8 Copy quote

• I've never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Photography, Emotional, Made

  13 Copy quote

• I think photojournalism is documentary photography with a purpose.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Photography, Thinking, Purpose

  30 Copy quote

• 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

  Giving, Understanding, Trying

  25 Copy quote

• 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

  Dark, Thinking, Keys

  16 Copy quote

• ...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

  Men, Years, Echoes

  W. Eugene Smith (1969). “W. Eugene Smith, his photographs and notes”

  14 Copy quote

• Available light is any damn light that is available!

  W. Eugene Smith

  Photography, Light, Photographer

  17 Copy quote

• My camera, my intentions stopped no man from falling. Nor did they aid him after he had fallen. It could be said that photographs be damned for they bind no wounds. Yet, I reasoned, if my photographs could cause compassionate horror within the viewer, they might also prod the conscience of that viewer into taking action.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Fall, Men, Might

  7 Copy quote

• With considerable soul searching, that to the utmost of my ability, I have let truth be the prejudice.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Soul, Prejudice, Truth Is

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Wall, Museums

  17 Copy quote

• What's the best type of light? Why that would be available light... and by available light I mean any damn light is available.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Mean, Light, Would Be

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Notebook, Wall, Museums

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Attitude, Artist, Odds

  13 Copy quote

• The first word I would remove from the folklore of journalism is the word objective.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Firsts, Journalism, Folklore

  9 Copy quote

• 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 matterand 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

  Emotional, Choices, Decision

  4 Copy quote

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