PHOTOGRAPHY QUOTES

quotations about photography

Photography quote

A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.

DIANE ARBUS

Diane Arbus: Revelations


Photographs bear witness to a human choice being exercised in a given situation. A photograph is a result of the photographer's decision that it is worth recording that this particular event or this particular object has been seen. If everything that existed were continually being photographed, every photograph would become meaningless.

JOHN BERGER

Selected Essays and Articles

Tags: John Berger


It is confusing to come across a youthful photograph of some one known in a rounded maturity and gaze with a shock upon a fiery, wiry, eagle-eyed stranger.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Tender Is the Night

Tags: F. Scott Fitzgerald


One of the keys to a good photo is to keep everyone happy on set and plan all your technicalities in advance, so you don't end up adjusting lights for hours. Talking with your team and model while doing a setup/light adjustment is also a good way to keep the connection going between everyone. If for any reason you lose technical control, don't bring the people on set into detailed explanation, just inform them that you are making an adjustment to get an even better outcome, and keep the good vibes on. Not doing so might make them lose trust in you and your professionalism. Kill the panic. Nip it in the bud.

EMMA GRIGORYAN

"Panic on Set: Does It Help Your Photography and How to Deal With It", Fstoppers, April 28, 2016


Photography has freed the plastic arts from their obsession with likeness.

ANDRÉ BAZIN

What Is Cinema?


Photography, because it stops the flow of life, is always flirting with death.

JOHN BERGER

Selected Essays of John Berger

Tags: John Berger


Photography as a fad is well-nigh on its last legs, thanks principally to the bicycle craze.

ALFRED STIEGLITZ

American Annual of Photography, 1897


A photograph acquires something of the dignity which it ordinarily lacks when it ceases to be a reproduction of reality and shows us things that no longer exist.

MARCEL PROUST

Within a Budding Grove

Tags: Marcel Proust


A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.

IVAN KLIMA

Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

Tags: Ivan Klima


Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON

attributed, Click You!


Photography is an elegiac art, a twilight art. Most subjects photographed are, just by virtue of being photographed, touched with pathos.

SUSAN SONTAG

On Photography

Tags: Susan Sontag


All the arts are based on the presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence.

ANDRÉ BAZIN

What Is Cinema?

Tags: Andre Bazin


I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term -- meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching -- there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

ANSEL ADAMS

"A Personal Credo", American Annual of Photography, 1944


Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.

ANDRÉ BAZIN

What Is Cinema?

Tags: André Bazin


A photograph is a meeting place where the interests of the photographer, the photographed, the viewer and those who are using the photograph are often contradictory.

JOHN BERGER

Another Way of Telling

Tags: John Berger


The photographer is like the cod which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

"George Bernard Shaw on Coburn's Photography", British Journal of Photography, 1906

Tags: George Bernard Shaw


I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

JOHN STEINBECK

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters

Tags: John Steinbeck


Photographs are believed more than words; thus they can be used persuasively to show people who have never taken the trouble to look what is there. They can point out beauties and relationships not previously believed or suspected to exist.

ELIOT PORTER

attributed, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics


Photography is about capturing souls not smiles.

DRAGAN TAPSHANOV

attributed, Pinterest


My photographs don't do me justice -- they just look like me.

PHYLLIS DILLER

attributed, Put Your House on a Diet

Tags: Phyllis Diller