Bill Atkinson Quotes

I was always painting when I was a kid. But then when I handled a camera when I was 17, that was it for me. I loved photography. I would work 4 or 5 hours a day. It was like a calling.

In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.

Photography gives you the opportunity to use your sensibility and everything you are to say something about and be part of the world around you. In this way, you might discover who you are, and with a little luck, you might discover something much larger than yourself.

Making art, good art, is always a struggle. It can make you happy when you pull it off. There's no better feeling. It's beauteous. But it's always about hard work and inspiration and sweat and good ideas.

Make good art.

One of these days, I'm going to publish a book of all the pictures I did not take. It is going to be a huge hit.

I'm not a politician or a scholar or political historian. I'm just a photographer who's trying to capture a spirit. It's not an intellectual process; it's an intuitive process.

I wanted to be a painter, really, when I was growing up as a kid. It was one thing that really took a grip on me.

What it all boils down to for me is having the enthusiasm to do something for enjoyment and being stimulated by what's around you. That's what photography does for me.

My students frequently ask what their next project should be. My advice: immerse yourself in the music you love and you will find what you want to do; you will discover your next project.

The boyhood dream of becoming a painter stays important to me.

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.

I started shooting pictures because I had all these photographers around me, and life was kind of boring creatively because you play the same songs every night. So I looked for another outlet, and I started shooting.

The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject, and the camera will all but take you by the hand and point the way.

I’m trying to please myself; certainly that’s a big criterion... though in a sense, I don’t take images just for myself. I take images that I think other people will want to see. I don’t take pictures to put in a box and hide them. I want as many people to see them as possible.

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.

I tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.

People go, 'What do you want to do?' What do you want to do? What are you feeling? Going into a shoot not fully knowing what I want to do—that excitement, that thing that happens, is just so powerful and makes such great pictures.

Unless you photograph what you love, you're not going to make good art.

Good art in general aspires to something, as a good painting aspires to something, almost spiritual or holy.

I really tried to make movies I wanted to see. I thought that if I was good enough, somebody would always need me.

I look at the film as an opportunity to see some bountifully creative minds do something that I could not do - tell the story with images. I can't wait to see what they do.

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.

There were a series of moments when I decided that art was important, and it was an important vehicle for me to express my interest in spaces.

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony.