Bill Brandt Quotes

Most photographers would feel a certain embarrassment in admitting publicly that they carried within them a sense of wonder, yet without it they would not produce the work they do, whatever their particular field.

I'd very much like to create my own style as a photographer, even if it's just for myself.

The image of a bedsheet ghost standing all alone in an empty house was something I was obsessed with. I really wanted to make a film about that image, and I was waiting for the right story to come along. When it did, I did my best to honor that image.

I'm trying to paint a picture of what I have seen and what moved me, as well as I can. That's all.

There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.

Egon Schiele is my favorite painter. There's just something about art - photography, painting, music, plays - whatever you see, sometimes there's a gut reaction that's more important or more visceral than what your brain is thinking about. You can't explain that reaction. It's like what happens when you fall in love.

If you're a painter, you don't go, 'Abstract's really selling, so that's what I'm going to do.' If you're really truly an artist, you have to think what you're meant to paint.

I've done my own videos, I do my own styling, so I feel like I've just always been a visual artist... I was one of those kids who wanted to make my own clothes and take pictures of everything. Everything inspired me, and everything felt like art around me.

As a filmmaker what you can hope to do is doing what drives you.

I am not afraid to experiment - sometimes going beyond what is traditionally beautiful is what makes a great picture.

You don't have to compose a masterpiece every time, but I think the challenge of art is always searching for something different, searching for a new sensitivity, a new perspective, a new vision.

Creating films and photographs through situations that few others could experience is my life's inspiration.

I collect art like other people eat pizza. I can't get enough of it. I need a constant source of inspiration.

You see someone like maybe William Eggleston. William doesn't even really talk about what he does; he just wants to make these images. He kind of hovers around a location and extracts these images.

I believe that the medium of photography prevails entirely as an act of faith in the souls of those who love and practice it. And so every photograph becomes another subtle variation on the theme of the medium itself.

I guess I've shot about 40,000 negatives and of these I have about 800 pictures I like.

The subject gives you the best idea of how to make a photograph. So I just wait for something to happen.

I know some photographs that are extraodrinary in their power and conviction, but it is difficult in photography to overcome the superficial power or subject; the concept and statement must be quite convincing in themselves to win over a dramatic and compelling subject situation.

I have often photographed when I am not in tune with nature but the photographs look as if I had been. So I conclude that something in nature says, 'Come and take my photograph.' So I do, regardless of how I feel.

I believe that the source of your inspiration is very important. I sometimes see this problem with photographers, even very good ones, who have drawn too much inspiration from photography and who, over time, have a problem forming their own identity.

I have never taken a photograph without one thought in my head to amuse myself.

My only interest in photographing is photography.

If you have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the pleasure of life itself is for the time lost.

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

Light is my inspiration. My photographic images search for dimensions that words cannot touch- the result of intense responses to personal experiences. I do not wish to "record," but rather to touch upon the illusive meanings which I perceive and try to comprehend in this limitless universe.