24 Quotes on Photography from Photographers, Writers, and one U.S. President

1. The Art of Observation:
24 Quotes on Photography
by Photographers and Writers
and
One U.S. President

2. “Wherever there is light, one can photograph.”
~Alfred Stieglitz, 1864-1946
Photographer, modern art promoter and gallery and museum curator

3. “A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side
of it.”
~ Edward Steichen, 1879-1973
Photographer, painter, museum curator
Isadora Duncan in the Parthenon, Athens - 1921, by Edward Steichen

4. “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
~Henry Cartier-Bresson, 1908-2004
Photographer

5. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What
you have caught on film is captured forever...it remembers
little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
~Aaron Siskind, 1903-1991
Photographer

6. “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.”
~ Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865
16th President of the United States

7. “Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives
of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.”
~Robert Frank, 1924
Photographer, filmmaker

8. “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the
less you know.”
~ Diane Arbus, 1923-1971
Photographer and writer

9. “Photography can only represent the present. Once
photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.”
~
Berenice Abbott, 1898-1991
Photographer

10. “It is a cruel, ironical art, photography. The dragging of a captured
moment into the future; moments that should have been allowed to
be evaporate into the past; should exist only in memories, glimpsed
through the fog of events that came after. Photographs force us to see
people before their future weighed them down.”
~ from The House at Riverton
written by Kate Morton, 1976

11. “Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But
above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know
the key to photography. “
~George Eastman, 1854-1932
Innovator, entrepreneur, philanthropist, founder of Eastman Kodak Company

12. “A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.”
~Eudora Welty, 1909-2001
Writer and photographer

13. “To me, the magic of photography, per
se, is that you can capture an instance
of a second that couldn’t exist before
and couldn’t exist after. It’s almost like a
cowboy that draws his gun. You draw a
second before or miss and you’re dead -
not them. To me, photography’s always
like that.”
~Mario Testino, 1954
Photographer

14. “Photography takes an instant out of time,
altering life by holding it still.”
~Dorothea Lange, 1895-1965
Photographer
Migrant Mother, 1936 by Dorothea Lange
(Florence Owens Thompson)

15. “Contrast is what makes
photography interesting.”
~Conrad Hall, 1926-2003
Cinematographer

16. “Photography, to me, is catching a moment which is
passing, and which is true.”
~Jacques Henri Lartigue, 1894-1986
Photographer and painter

17. “Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth
of a second.”
~Marc Riboud, 1923
Photographer

18. “To me, photography is an art of observation.
It’s about finding something interesting in an
ordinary place...I’ve found it has little to do
with the things you see and everything to do
with the way you see them.”
~Elliott Erwitt, 1928
Photographer

19. “In photography there are no shadows that cannot be
illuminated.”
~August Sander, 1876-1964
Portrait and documentary photographer
Encampment of the unemployed, New York City, 1935 by
Berenice Abbott

20. “I’ve always believed that photography is a way to shape human
perception.”
~James Balog, 1952
Photographer

21. Georgia O’Keeffe, Hands, 1918 by Alfred Stieglitz
“Of course, there will always be those who look only at
technique, and who ask ‘how’ while others of a more
curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always
preferred inspiration to information.”
~Man Ray, 1890-1976
Artist

22. “Computer photography won’t be photography as we
know it. I think photography will always be chemical.”
~Annie Leibovitz, 1949
Photographer

23. “Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a
look into the future.”
~Sally Mann, 1951
Photographer

24. “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.
When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
~Ansel Adams, 1902-1984
Photographer and environmentalist
Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park, 1942 by Ansel Adams

25. “Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take
tomorrow.”
~Imogen Cunningham 1883-1976
Photographer

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