Photographic Technique Quotes

I never work with a screen. Other photographers have this black thing around, and they go back and look at it. I'd rather spend the time with the subject, photographing or discussing or talking, than staring at this thing. I'd rather look at what's going on.

I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.

I had an instamatic wind-on camera and remember buying the flashcubes and fixing on top of the frame. The flash credits were limited so you had to be careful not to waste any.

I became interested in photography when I found my own sketching was inadequate.

There must be a reason why photographers are not very good at verbal communication. I think we get lazy.

I took a workshop from him a few months after that. That experience changed my whole approach to photography. At that workshop in Yosemite in 1973 I decided I wanted to try and see if I could pursue this for myself, and I'm still trying.

The desire to discover, the desire to move, to capture the flavor, three concepts that describe the art of photography.

I photograph continuously, often without a good idea or strong feelings. During this time the photos are nearly all poor, but I believe they develop my seeing and help later on in other photos. I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

Although photography generates works that can be called art-it requires subjectivity, it can lie, it gives aesthetic pleasure-photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made.

I've learned to create a palette, a vocabulary of ways to take pictures.

Photography is unlike any other art form. In the other arts there is always a continuous interplay between the artist and his art. He has the painting or sculpture before him. What we have tried to do is to provide a medium for "artistic expression" to anyone with only a reasonable amount of time. By giving him a camera system with which he need only control his selection of focus, composition and lighting, we free him to select the moment and to criticize immediately what he has done. We enable him to see what else he wants to do on the basis of what he has just learned.

The process must be concealed from - non-existent for - the photographer, who by definition need think of the art in the taking and not in the making photographs... In short, all that should be necessary to get a good picture is to take a good picture.

Photography is 1% talent and 99% moving furniture.

I have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.

I often photograph something as if the subject matter was realistic, but it is actually a fantasy.

Black and white photography is truly quite a 'departure from reality', and the transition from one aspect of visual magic to another was not as complete as many imagine.

I say half jokingly that photography is the most difficult of the arts. It does require a certain arrogance to see and to choose. I feel myself walking on a tightrope instead of on the ground.

A photograph is not an accident - is a concept. It exists at, or before, the moment of exposure of the negative.

The negative is the score, and the print the performance.

And what we called photojournalism, the photos seen in places like Life magazine, didn't interest me either. They were just not good-there was no art there. The first person who I respected immensely was Henri Cartier-Bresson. I still do.

[Photography] remains servile to a thoughtless vision of the world... As the term snapshot suggests, photography seizes the moment and exhibits it.

I think the 50mm lens is an extremely good discipline lens; it requires you to see in a more refined way, not just tighter.

The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer.

When we take a picture, we have a negative. We put the right solution on it and, suddenly, the picture comes to life. So what do we do? We take the negative and turn it into a positive.

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.