Spontaneous Capture Quotes

I just use [the camera]. I just pick it up like an axe when I've got to chop down a tree. I pick up a camera and go out and shoot the pictures I have to shoot.

The ambition of instantaneous photography... was that of preserving the spontaneity of action and avoiding any indication that the presence of the picture taker had a modifying influence on what was going on.

The thing that interests me about photography, and why it's different from all other media, is that it's the only medium in which there is even the possibility of an accidental masterpiece.

There are two kinds of photographers: those who compose pictures and those who take them. The former work in studios. For the latter, the studio is the world... For them, the ordinary doesn't exist: every thing in life is a source of nourishment.

For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

My wife Mariana is a good photographer too and, like me, she just picks up a camera and takes a picture when she sees something, rather than looking too deeply into it.

I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff - being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.

Sometimes we work so fast that we don't really understand what's going on in front of the camera. We just kind of sense that, 'Oh my God, it's significant!' and photograph impulsively while trying to get the exposure right. Exposure occupies my mind while intuition frames the images.

Shooting on the iPhone has become more of a directors' tool to lower inhibition of first-time actors and nonprofessionals. While it's helped me become more mobile, no pun intended - running around, finding tight areas and different ways of moving the camera - to me it's more about using this device to catch candid moments. That's the biggest thing.

Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture. You never realize that you needed was to change perspective.

When you work with kids, especially, you want to be ready to turn the camera on at a moment's notice.