Photograph Quotes

• Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.

  Ansel Adams

  Photography, Art, Believe

  75 Copy quote

• If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time.

  Robert Doisneau

  Photography, Knowing, Cameras

  106 Copy quote
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  You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.

  Ansel Adams

  Music, Photography, Art

  142 Copy quote

• There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

  Ansel Adams

  Photography, Cameras, Photographer

  Attributed in "The Everything Digital Photography Book" by E.T. Schoch, (p. 105), 2002.

  46 Copy quote

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  To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.

  Susan Sontag

  Time, Moments, Mortality

  Susan Sontag (1978). “On photography”, Delta

  62 Copy quote

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• Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it.

  Morley Baer

  Beautiful, Trying, Ordinary

  45 Copy quote

• My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.

  Steve McCurry

  Inspirational, Photography, Insightful

  "Steve McCurry’s Photographs Of His Travels Will Give You The Chills" by Rebecca Shapiro, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 24, 2015.

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• Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow.

  Imogen Cunningham

  Inspirational, Photography, Art

  93 Copy quote

• A lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they'll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won't do a thing for you if you don't have anything in your head or in your heart.

  Arnold Newman

  Photography, Heart, Thinking

  61 Copy quote

• A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Photography, Philosophical

  64 Copy quote
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  Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.

  Dorothea Lange

  Inspirational, Life, Change

  97 Copy quote

• Beauty can be seen in all things.

  Matt Hardy

  Photography, Portraits, Photographer

  16 Copy quote

• The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words.

  Elliott Erwitt

  Inspirational, Photography, Cameras

  96 Copy quote

• A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.

  Irving Penn

  Inspirational, Photography, Heart

  64 Copy quote

• A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.

  Eudora Welty

  Photography, Running, Snapshots

  Eudora Welty (1998). “Stories, Essays, and Memoir”

  79 Copy quote

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• To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Reality, Joy

  46 Copy quote

• I photograph continuously, often without a good idea or strong feelings. During this time the photos are nearly all poor, but I believe they develop my seeing and help later on in other photos. I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

  Harry Callahan

  Photography, Strong, Believe

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  A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.

  Ansel Adams

  Photography, Needs, Photographer

  Ansel Adams, Nancy Wynne Newhall, M.H. De Young Memorial Museum (1963*). “Ansel Adams, photographs 1923-1963”

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• To take photographs is putting one's head, one's eye, and one's heart on the same axis

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Heart, Eye, Axes

  Henri Cartier-Bresson, Michael L. Sand (1999). “The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers”

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• A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

  Ansel Adams

  Photography, Knowing, Photographer

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough - there has to be vision, and the two together can make a good photograph.

  Robert Frank

  Photography, Two, Humanity

  "Photographers on photography: a critical anthology". Book by Nathan Lyons, p. 66, 1966.

  72 Copy quote

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• There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.

  Robert Heinecken

  Photography, Differences, Photographer

  45 Copy quote

• I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Photography, Believe

  58 Copy quote

• You don't take a photograph, you make it.

  Ansel Adams

  Inspirational, Photography, Art

  31 Copy quote
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  Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.

  George Eastman

  Photography, Creativity, Keys

  88 Copy quote