101 Photography Quotes

Here is our collection of 101 Photography Quotes.

1. one should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind. – dorothea lange
2. your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. -paul strand
3. while there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. -dorothea lange
4. as i have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. i see something special and show it to the camera. a picture is produced. the moment is held until someone sees it. then it is theirs. – sam abell
5. my portraits are more about me than they are about the people i photograph. -richard avedon
6. when i say i want to photograph someone, what it really means is that i’d like to know them. anyone i know i photograph. -annie leibovitz
7. you don’t take a photograph. you ask, quietly, to borrow it. -author unknown
8. there are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. -ansel adams
9. one photo out of focus is a mistake, ten photos out of focus are an experimentation, one hundred photos out of focus are a style. -author unknown
10. every time someone tells me how sharp my photos are, i assume that it isn’t a very interesting photograph. if it were, they would have more to say. -author unknown
11. i never have taken a picture i’ve intended. they’re always better or worse. -diane arbus
12. it can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. -timothy allen
13. i am an amateur and i intend to stay that way for the rest of my life. -andre kertesz
14. i take photographs with love, so i try to make them art objects. but i make them for myself first and foremost–that is important. -jacques-henri lartigue
15. a great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety. -ansel adams
16. i think the best pictures are often on the edges of any situation, i don’t find photographing the situation nearly as interesting as photographing the edges. -william albert allard
17. a ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason alone. i don’t think this can be true for photography. unless there is something a little incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. we won’t take an interest in it. -john loengard
18. when words become unclear, i shall focus with photographs. when images become inadequate, i shall be content with silence. -ansel adams
19. i’m not a particularly verbose person. i think that’s why i like taking pictures… they speak for themselves. -jeb dickerson
20. look, i’m not an intellectual…i just take pictures. -helmut newton
21. the camera can photograph thought. -dirk bogarde
22. whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. -walker evans
23. photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. it is a major force in explaining man to man. -edward steichen
24. some photographers take reality…and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation. -ansel adams
25. 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. -henri cartier-bresson
26. a good snapshot stops a moment from running away. -eudora welty
27. a photograph must be more interesting than the thing photographed. -gary winogran
28. beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph. -matt hardy
29. buying a nikon doesn’t make you a photographer. it makes you a nikon owner. -author unknown
30. no place is boring, if you’ve had a good night’s sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. -robert adams
31. there will be times when you will be in the field without a camera. and, you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed. don’t be bitter because you can’t record it. sit down, drink it in, and enjoy it for what it is! -degriff
32. at forty-two i decided to become a photographer because it offered a means of creative thought and action. i didn’t rationalize this, i just felt it intuitively and followed my intuition, which i have never regretted. -wynn bullock
33. If I have any ‘message’ worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography. – Edward Weston
34. There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept. -Ansel Adams
35. You don’t take a photograph, you make it. -Ansel Adams
36. Of course it’s all luck. – Henri Cartier-Bresson
37. Notebook. No photographer should be without one! -Ansel Adams
38. It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are. – Paul Caponigro
39. I shutter to think how many people are underexposed and lacking depth in this field. – Rick Steves,
40. Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn’t photogenic. -Edward Weston
41. Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter. – Ansel Adams
42. If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough. -Robert Capa
43. There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer. -Ansel Adams
44. Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst. – Henri Cartier-Bresson
45. For me the printing process is part of the magic of photography. It’s that magic that can be exciting, disappointing, rewarding and frustrating all in the same few moments in the darkroom. – John Sexton
46. I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do – that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse. – Diane Arbus
47. I treat the photograph as a work of great complexity in which you can find drama. Add to that a careful composition of landscapes, live photography, the right music and interviews with people, and it becomes a style. – Ken Burns
48. In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality. – Alfred Stieglitz
49. It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. – Henry David Thoreau
50. If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough. – Robert Capa
51. There are two people in every photograph: the photographer and the viewer. – Ansel Adams
52. You don’t take a photograph, you make it. – Ansel Adams
53. Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop. – Ansel Adams
54. If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera. – Lewis Hine
55. I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them. -Diane Arbus
56. Amateurs worry about equipment, Professionals worry about time, Masters worry about light. – Anonymous
57. Owning a DSLR does not make you a photographer. It makes you a DSLR owner. – Anonymous
58. I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just isn’t that good. – Anonymous
59. If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up. – Garry Winogrand
60. I take photographs to see what something looks like as a photograph. – Garry Winogrand
61. Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgment that the photograph is good – Garry Winogrand
62. Photography is the easiest art, which perhaps makes it the hardest. – Lisette Model
63. Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times I just shoot at what interests me at that moment. – Elliott Erwitt
64. Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow. – Imogen Cunningham
65. If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff. – Jim Richardson
66. Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph – Andre Kertesz
67. When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls! – Ted Grant
68. In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it. – Emile Zola
69. If I knew how to take a good photograph, I’d do it every time. – Robert Doisneau
70. I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer. – Alfred Eisenstaedt
71. Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase. – Percy W. Harris
72. A good photographer must love life more than he does photography. – Joel Strasser
73. If you see something that moves you, and then snap it, you keep a moment. – Linda McCartney
74. Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like. – David Alan Harvey
75. Of course it’s all luck. – Henri Cartier-Bresson
76. My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person. – Andy Warhol
77. Photography, like alcohol, should only be allowed to those who can do without it. – Walter Sickert
78. A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it. – Edward Steichen
79. The camera’s only job is to get out of the way of making photographs. – Ken Rockwell
80. It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are. – Paul Caponigro
81. A picture is worth a thousand words; a slide show is both. – Anonymous
82. The brilliancy and sharpness of some of them are highly remarkable. – Anonymous
83. Photography teaches that how well you see has nothing to do with how well you see. – Anonymous
84. Once photography enters your bloodstream, it’s like a disease. – Anonymous
85. The only reason to do your own processing is quality. – Anonymous
86. Never show a customer two prints of different density. He will ask you to print a third with a density between the two. – Anonymous
87. A photograph can be as striking and as haunting as a great painting or a fine poem. – Anonymous
88. The ultimate photographic camera will imprint a scene directly into a person’s memory. – Anonymous
89. It’s not the camera, but who’s behind the camera. – Anonymous
90. Putting the camera in their faces is always the hardest. But you just have to do it. – Anonymous
91. The difference between the amateur and the professional is that the professional looks it up. – Anonymous
92. Jesus opened my eyes, as the camera opened my heart to see all of the beauty this world has to behold. – Anonymous
93. When people ask what equipment I use – I tell them my eyes. – Anonymous
94. What is the most important element of photojournalism: Light? Moment? Composition? You are wrong. – It’s magic. – Anonymous
95. Success is what happens when 10,000 hours of preparation meet with one moment of opportunity. – Anonymous
96. It is best that a photographer not simply take a picture. A photographer has a responsibility to share a visual experience with others by every possible means. – Anonymous
97. A tear contains an ocean. A photographer is aware of the tiny moments in a person’s life that reveal greater truths. – Anonymous
98. A camera is a hollow tube that allows free-flowing, inward and outward expressions of love between a photographer and a subject. – Anonymous
99. You know what a camera is? A mirror with memory. – Anonymous
100. Sports are a lot like photography. If you don’t focus, all you will get is the negative. – Anonymous
101. A good photograph will make an uncommonly good image of common subjects. – Anonymous