Photography Quotes

[dubaiphil]

There are thousands of them out there - so what are your favourites? What do you relate to most?

Over time my favourite quotes have changed, some through social media become overused (e.g. the famous Ted Grant quote "When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls")


I'll start the ball rolling

My current favourite, which strives me to get close to my subjects, is:

"Creepiness is directly proportional to focal length"

[Tringa]

Like that one Phil.

These are all well known but they resonate with me.

"Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.”
― Joe McNally

Oh, how many times have I packed away too early?



"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri was clearly much more talented than me. I'm well over the 10,000 and they are still bad.



and one from the man who, in my opinion, produced some of the best images I have seen -

“There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.”
― Ansel Adams

Says it all.

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

My two favorites are displayed in the automated signature displayed at the bottom of my posts.

[HaseebM]

What about the one that goes something like this...."Photography is the art of using light to paint your image"

[tao2]

[Venser]

My greatest fear is when I die, my wife will sell my camera equipment for what I told her I paid for it.

[dubaiphil]

My greatest fear is when I die, my wife will sell my camera equipment for what I told her I paid for it.

I like that one!

[John 2]

So do I

[Manfred M]

I am a firm believer in the Cartier-Bresson quote that Dave posted, although that comes from the film age. I've read a suggestion that in the digital age, this should be more like "Your first 100,000 images are your worst".

My second favourite quote is from Robert Cappa; "if your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough". It is also a good thing to remember that he died following that suggestion when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam as he was trying to get closer to his subject....

[george013]

I am a firm believer in the Cartier-Bresson quote that Dave posted, although that comes from the film age. I've read a suggestion that in the digital age, this should be more like "Your first 100,000 images are your worst".

My second favourite quote is from Robert Cappa; "if your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough". It is also a good thing to remember that he died following that suggestion when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam as he was trying to get closer to his subject....

I just can't resist. Gerda Tarot, girlfriend of Robert Cappa, she gave Endre Friedmann the name Robert Cappa. She died in Spain as the first female war photographer that died during her job, run-over by a tank.


George

[mknittle]

"It is kind of like sailing, easy to learn how to do it, but then you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how to do it well".

All the best - j.Nickerson

[davidedric]

I love the Devil's Dictionary written by Ambrose Bierce more than a century ago. If you don't know it, have a look at http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com

So I looked up his definition of a photograph "a picture painted by the sun, without instruction in art" but then typically added "It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne"

I don't know quite what it means, but still it makes me smile

Dave

[dje]

See my automated signiature below. I like it because of the date - 1902. This has special significance for we technophiles of today as we babble on endlessly about pixel pitch, lens MTF, VR etc.