Joe McNally Quotes

I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element.

I've learned to create a palette, a vocabulary of ways to take pictures.

Modern technology has taken the angst out of achieving the perfect shot. For me, the only thing that counts is the idea behind the image: what you want to see and what you're trying to say. The idea is crucial. You have to think of something you want to say and expand upon it.

I'm always worried about the sitter - are they cold, are they hot, are they comfortable? Photography today is so accurate and so good that it's really so much easier just to take photographs and work from them.

I was always interested in photography and other forms of art.

When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.

I fight to take a good photograph every single time.

My filmmaking really began with technology. It began through technology, not through telling stories, because my 8mm movie camera was the way into whatever I decided to do.

It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.

It doesn't matter if you use a box camera or you use a Leica; the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing.

I've been taking photographs since I was a teenager, and fashion has taught me a lot more about photography. It's definitely inspired me.

Well, I think the camera freedom is something that we've resisted for a long time and feels like probably the biggest stretch. But it has some huge benefits.

My blog is actually all self-photography unless it's a photo shoot.

I love working with photographers.

I love Instagram and photography.

I was a photographer. That's how I began my career, behind the camera.

I have a low-tech camera with one lens that I've shot everything in my life on. My subjects and my subject matter sometimes really are powerful, and so my job is to get it into focus.

I don't have a digital camera. I don't understand it - and I don't want to.

On digital photography: It's fantastic, but it's not a freebie for anything. You still have to have this (he points to his eyes), and this (points to his heart), and feet.

I can tell you what I personally use a camera for. Basically, it is to record a moment. A moment that is vital to give the viewer a sensation of liveliness, sadness, joy and so on.

I never claimed to be a great photographer.

Photography belongs to a fraternity of its own. I was young and enthusiastic and wanted to take good pictures to show the other photographers. That, and the professional pride of convincing an editor that I was the man to go somewhere, were the most important things to me.

Photography is my passion. Whenever I get time, I click.

There was never a day at West Point where I didn't ask myself, 'Where would I put the camera?'

I take a lot of pride in my photography.