PHOTOGRAPHY QUOTES III

quotations about photography

Photography quote

Photography is a powerful medium of persuasion and propaganda. It has that ring of truth when all the time, in artful hands, it can make any statement the manipulator chooses.

MICHAEL LANGFORD

Basic Photography

Tags: Michael Langford


My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, or the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.

EDWARD WESTON

attributed, Pictures on a Page: Photojournalism and Picture Editing


Life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference and it is important to see what is invisible to others.

ROBERT FRANK

attributed, Photographic Possibilities


There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.

ANSEL ADAMS

attributed, Light and Lens: Photography in the Digital Age


Photography knows how to authenticate its misrepresentations.

MASON COOLEY

City Aphorisms

Tags: Mason Cooley


In order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes.

ROLAND BARTHES

Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

Tags: Roland Barthes


The photograph has reversed the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar.... The world itself becomes a sort of museum of objects that have been encountered before in some other medium.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Tags: Marshall McLuhan


It is a cruel, ironical art, photography. The dragging of captured moments 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.

KATE MORTON

The House at Riverton


To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed.

SUSAN SONTAG

On Photography

Tags: Susan Sontag


A great image is a great image, no matter who took it, where they live, and whether they were using a phone or the most expensive camera.

MIKE BETTS

"Community for Photography Photocrowd Seeks £450,000 Through Crowdcube", Crowd Fund Insider, April 28, 2016


The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion.

RICHARD AVEDON

attributed, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance


The act of photography is like going on a hunt in which photographer and camera merge into one indivisible function. This is a hunt for new states of things, situations never seen before, for the improbable, for information.

VILEM FLUSSER

Towards a Philosophy of Photography

Tags: Vilem Flusser


The definition of a picture and the definition of photography is evolving in this truly digital space. Pictures can do things that pictures were never supposed to do.

RUSSELL ARMAND

"How the GIF Is Taking Over the World", Time, March 30, 2016


To photograph ... is to put in the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.

HENRI-CARTIER-BRESSON

Pix, 1993


The photograph extends and multiplies the human image to the proportions of mass-produced merchandise. The movie stars and matinee idols are put in the public domain by photography. They become dreams that money can buy.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Tags: Marshall McLuhan


It is in these moments of stillness where I can really appreciate the little hidden surprises at every turn, the small details that often go unnoticed as we hurtle through our days. When you stop, take a deep breath, and find your sense of wonder, you surprise yourself with the beauty that lies in your frame.

GUY SEBASTIAN

"Guy Sebastian shares his photography tips", Sunshine Coast Daily, April 26, 2016


The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.

JOHN BERGER

About Looking

Tags: John Berger


Photography is a fickle art. You might start with the plan to shoot perfume bottles and end up doing corporate portraits. You might think at some point in your career that uber retouched imagery is your signature only to realize that the natural look that you though so boring is becoming a key ingredient in your style. Yes there are individuals who have a distinct style even when they are toddlers but for the rest of us -- human beings -- our art is forged by the gruesome practice of trail and fail.

ANNA DABROWSKA

"Why Professional Gear Is Not The Most Important Element in Photography", Fstoppers, April 20, 2016


A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second.

SALMAN RUSHDIE

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Tags: Salman Rushdie


I love things like Instagram and Pinterest. I get so many ideas just by getting a daily digest of images from great photographers who I follow on social media. What that also does is it tells me which pictures stand out to me, then I can analyse them and try and work out what it is about that particular image that had me mesmerised for longer than a glance.

GUY SEBASTIAN

"Guy Sebastian shares his photography tips", Sunshine Coast Daily, April 26, 2016