Eve Arnold Quotes

I fight to take a good photograph every single time.

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

The greatest creators are as hungry to consume as they are to create.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Things develop in front of my camera, and then I will try to do the best out of it. I am close, but in most of the scenes, I am trying not to be seen. I think that's the trick. I think it starts in your heart, goes to the head, and the head puts it into the finger.

I think the key is basically just your determination. As far an artist is concerned, it's just about your drive and your dream.

What drives the creative person is that we see it all.

We always have a take that's 'one for fun', so once you've got what you need, you can do what you like. Something does occasionally pop out of that tree. I'm always open to ideas.

You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.

No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film.

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

With photography, I always think that it's not good enough.

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

The more life you have, the more it's in your pores, the more able you are to be creative as an artist.

It is not enough to know your craft - you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.

The great photographers of life - like Diane Arbus and Walker Evans and Robert Frank - all must have had some special quality: a personality of nurturing and non-judgment that frees the subjects to reveal their most intimate reality. It really is what makes a great photographer, every bit as much as understanding composition and lighting.

As a child I prayed that my calling be revealed - but not with expectation and not with a destination. I became an artist because I didn't know what to do and I thought it was really fun to make things.

Designing is a matter of concentration. You go deep into what you want to do. It's about intensive research, really. The concentration is warm and intimate and like the fire inside the earth - intense but not distorted. You can go to a place, really feel it in your heart. It's actually a beautiful feeling.

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.

A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes.

I probably get a deeper satisfaction of having taken a very good photograph than of having written something very good, a very good story. Maybe it's because the element of magic is so present in a good photograph - luck and magic, but also hard work and being ready and all that.

I am a very curious person, not just about my life in music. I love arts and creativity.

It's not about the equipment. Be less concerned about what kind of camera you have and more about what kind of effect you're trying to accomplish. Finding an original take is much more important than what you shoot it with.

Sometimes, I am lucky because all factors are combined - composition, light, emotion - and sometimes not. Most of the time, I must be patient and wait.

Nothing can stop a great song, so just keep songwriting.