Sam Abell Quotes

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.

Art is something you can't teach, but you can inspire it.

I am kept awake by the list of possibilities for shooting more photos and deciding what I must prioritise next.

All the things we have to remember, and I've mentioned this before, is that we're all artists.

Most artists work all the time, they do actually, especially good artists, they work all the time, what else is there to do? I mean you do.

To me, that is the essence of me as a photographer. It is those ideas, working with them, formulating them and eventually putting them down on paper, photographing them and then going on to the next step.

No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.

Actors may not realize the extent of their own power. Acting is creation. It's them bringing their own stuff, letting it marinate in their soul, in their creative engine.

Art is giving to what you create a soul.

Our brains have this habit of quilting dreams from the fabrics of our lives. As a filmmaker, I get to do it for a living.

As artists, our job is to communicate thoughts and tell stories.

If what I see in my mind excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph.

I paint what cannot be photographed, something from the imagination... I photograph the things I don't want to paint, things that are already in existence.

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.

...I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture.

The artist should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express.

You don't make a photograph just with a camera

To create something to dream about, I need exceptional women, locations and architectures.

I personally just love movies about the creative process.

Everyone's taste is different. But I think the best way to defend against regrets after opening night is to try your best to tell the story you want to tell. In terms of smaller changes over time, I think good plays are like poems. Every syllable counts.

The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.

The camera’s not a camera, really. It’s an open door we need to walk through. It’s up to us to keep moving our feet.

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination.

A man climbs a mountain because it is there. An artist makes a work of art because it is not there.