Capturing the Essence Quotes

Most photographs, to me, are description, but they lack insight.

A movie is not a book. If the source material is a book, you cannot be too respectful of the book. All you owe to the book is the spirit.

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.

When people see me in something and say, 'That's just you - that's not acting,' it's the best compliment I can get.

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

One view of photography is that it is a zen-like act which captures reality with its pants down - so that the vital click shows the anatomy bare. In this, the photographer is invisible but essential. A computer releasing the shutter would always miss the special moment that the human sensibility can register. For this work, the photographer's instinct is his aid, his personality a hindrance.

In all my shows, I'm not interested in the iconic shots of the Capitol and the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I'm always interested in trying to get the culture of the place - trying to get it right.

To me, this was an oxymoron, doing a painting of a dancer. Dancers are always moving.

Catch the beauty of the moment!

Things and men have always a certain sense, a certain side by which they must be got hold of if one wants to obtain a solid grasp and a perfect command.

Most writers are unhappy with film adaptations of their work, and rightly so. 'Field of Dreams,' however, caught the spirit and essence of 'Shoeless Joe' while making the necessary changes to make the work more visual.

Things have to be believable, not in a literal, photographic sense, but in an emotional sense - capturing the essence of the situation.

Did Robert De Niro actually look like Al Capone in 'The Untouchables?' Or did Van Kilmer look like Jim Morrison in 'The Doors?' No. It's the core, the essence of the personality that matters.

There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I photograph to see what something will look like photographed.

The poet is like the earth's shadow. The sun moves, and the poet writes something down.

Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

Adapting a book doesn't mean the book stops just because you've made a film out of it.

I can often tell when drawings are done from photographs, because you can tell what they miss out, what the camera misses out: usually weight and volume - there's a flatness to them.

Photography is, for me, a spontaneous impulse coming from an ever attentive eye which captures the moment and its eternity.

There's a lot of traps you can fall into when you are playing someone who existed. If it comes out just as impersonation, that's bad; it has to be an embodiment. You have to live it, not just sound and look like it.

I love catching a snapshot of something that is just about to happen. Or maybe something that just happened, you know. But I like especially that just-before kind of feeling.

There's a depth to the look that you get with models that you just can't get with CGI. It's about the detail that you just wouldn't think to put in.

With young people, it's how brassy and flashy can you be. But you get a bit older, it's about how restrained can you be. You have to feel it all, think it all, but you don't have to play it - it's just gotta be there, and if the story's good and the script's good, people will see it.

I think about a Richard Avedon photo series, the kind of faces he gets of real people, which I find so captivating. Fellini was also great in filling his films with this ambiance, this environment, sometimes chaotic and carnival-like, but people's faces were always amazing.

Photography is like a moment, an instant. You need a half-second to get the photo. So it's good to capture people when they are themselves.