Imogen Cunningham Quotes

I knew from the first moment I picked up a camera, on my first school assignment, what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was going to find a way to travel the world and tell the stories of the people I met through photographs.

To see, and to show, is the mission now undertaken by Life.

I've always thought photography is not so much of an art form but a way of communicating and passing on information.

I love writing, directing and photography; if I could figure out a way to put the three things together, that's what I would love to do.

I'm not trying to be in your face and take a picture that is like a journalistic kind of image. I got interested in a kind of complicated, compiled, visual field.

You can go into all sorts of situations with a camera and people will think they should serve it.

When a moment in front of me appears to be particularly special, whether it be by beauty or experience, I capture it. I usually find a reason to justify taking that photo - symmetry, or color, or contrast - and it's my hope that my photography sheds light onto what I see and do on a daily basis.

Obviously I am a photographer and I believe in my medium: I do think that powerful photographs can force change. It doesn't take long to look and be engaged in a strong image whereas, with a story, you have to actually sit down and pause and be involved in it.

Writing is my profession. Photography is my hobby.

I consider myself very lucky. I'm known for photographing celebrities, but, in a nutshell, my first love is photography.

I photograph different people all the time. I like to shoot all kinds of people.

I really like doing portraits, but I like taking pictures of things that are natural, like scenery, too.

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

I'm a documentary photographer. That's what I've always wanted to be; that's where my heart and soul is.

I don't want to knock photography, and I don't feel that film is up there but photography isn't. I think they're next to each other really, you know. There's an incredible strength to a still picture. Or there can be an incredible strength to a still picture that can outlive you. That can outlive a film.

Sometimes you feel uncomfortable taking a photograph, but that's all part of the job.

Most of the photographs people take with their cameraphones are of little value in terms of documentary.

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.

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.

My photography is often a sociological look at American culture, and it's been very well published in the U.K.

In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it.

I remember the first time I went out on the street to shoot pictures. I was in downtown Philadelphia, and I just took a walk and started making contact with people and photographing them, and I thought, 'I love this. This is what I want to do forever.' There was never another question.

I got a lot of flak originally for writing with photographs, because the great cliche in photography is that one photograph is worth a thousand words, and photographers are usually dodo birds anyway.

I realize that I had the best of serious picture journalism.

I've always believed that photography is a way to shape human perception.