Alberto Korda Quotes

Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'.

There was a camera club at Columbia, where I was taking a painting course. And when I went down, somebody showed me how to use the stuff. That's all. I haven't done anything else since then, It was as simple as that. I fell into the business.

Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.

Photography is my one recreation and I think it should be done well.

The best zoom lens is your legs.

Photography has been a passion of mine since I was 15.

All I'm doing is photographing. When I was working on The Animals, I was working on a lot of other things too. I kept going to the zoo because things were going on in certain pictures. It wasn't a project.

It's a choice - there are two different sorts of photographer: those obsessed with the technicalities and those obsessed by the subject.

I like having the digital camera on my smart phone, but I also like having a dedicated camera for when I want to take real pictures.

I've always been interested in photography. I remember when I was about 14, I spent an entire summer selling lottery tickets in some little booth so I could make enough money to buy an Olympus camera.

For my first book, 'New York,' I had one camera and two lenses. It was fotografia povera.

You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

In front of the camera and in front of the lens, there's no lawsuits, there's no agent, and there's most frequently no time limits... There's a longevity that's kind of built into it. I spend most of my time behind the scenes, and when it is time to perform, I'm genuinely delighted to do it.

When I was younger I used to be really into photography, and I still am, I just don't really get to do it besides taking my own artists photos and stuff like that.

The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.

There is something about this process, and about the whole 8 x 10 [camera] business, that takes it out of the arena of the snapshot, even though, of course, I'm always desperate for that feeling. I wanted those family pictures to look effortless. I wanted them to look like snapshots. And some of them did.

Cameras intrigued me.

If the guy behind the camera is not good, the pictures are bad. It's still you, and it's the same lines and everything, but it doesn't work.

A camera is wild in just about anybody's hands, therefore one must set limits. But cameras have a life of their own. Cameras care nothing about cults or isms. They are indifferent mechanical eyes, ready to devour anything in sight. They are lenses of the unlimited reproduction.

I know what I like to use myself. I use Leicas, but when I look at the photograph, I don't ask the photograph questions. Mine or anybody else's. The only time I've ever dealt with that kind of thing is when I'm teaching.

I am always surprised when I see several cameras, a gaggle on lenses, filters, meters, et cetera, rattling around in a soft bag with a complement of refuse and dust. Sometimes the professional is the worst offender!

Using iPads as cameras, for example, is like taking pictures with a cafeteria tray.

Apart from the traditional paintings I also dabble with a little photography.

I photograph what interests me. I'm not saying anything different.

I started photography more or less by accident when I was already 27. I was taken on as an assistant by a photographer who was a friend of a friend and I very quickly understood the potential of expression in photography.