Photography Quotations

The following are a series of quotations I really like relating to photography and that to some extent have shaped my approach. Enjoy!

If you've come across any you really like and you'd like to see added, please e-mail me.

• The camera's only job is to get out of the way of making photographs. Ken Rockwell, American photographer
• I'm inspired by the way light makes objects look magical and ethereal. Allan Jenkins, British photographer
• You don't take a photograph, you make it. Ansel Adams (1902-1984) Landscape Photographer
• The satisfaction comes from working next to 500 photographers and coming away with something different. David Burnett, American photographer
• What you need to cultivate first and foremost in photography is, I believe, your vision. David Ward, British photographer
• The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, novelist, dramatist, humanist, scientist, theorist and painter
• A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. Frank Capra (1897-1991), American director
• When your mouth drops open, click the shutter. Harold Feinstein, American photographer
• If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. Robert Capa (1913-1954) War Photographer
• Things should be made simple, not simpler. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-born theoretical physicist
• Merely copying the object is not art. What counts is to express the emotion called forth in you, the feeling awakened. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) French painter
• You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. Jack London ( 1876-1916) , American writer
• Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. Ansel Adams (1902-1984) Landscape Photographer
• It's on and around the edges where the landscape offers up its best images. Joe Cornish, British photographer
• I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch painter
• To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul. Andri Cauldwell, American photographer
• I have never taken a picture for any other reason than that at that moment it made me happy to do so. Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), French photographer and painter
• Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful. Ralph Waldo Emerson Emerson (1803-1882), American essayist and poet
• Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch painter
• To define is to destroy, to suggest is to create. Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), French poet and critic
• The hardest thing in photography is to create a simple image. Anne Geddes, Australian photographer
• It often happens that what stares us in the face is the most difficult to perceive. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) French paleontologist and philosopher
• Why limit yourself to what your eyes see when you have an opportunity to extend your vision? Edward Weston (1886-1958) Photographer
• The role of the photographer is akin to the mystic rather than the reporter. Brooks Jensen, American photographer and editor of 'Lenswork'
• A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there - even if you put them end to end, they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds, snatched from eternity. Robert Doisneau, (1912-1994) French photographer