"The more you photograph, the more you realize what can and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it."
"But before all else a work of art is the creation of love. Love for the subject first and for the medium second. Love is the fundamental necessity underlying the need to create, underlying the emotion that gives it form, and from which grows the unfinished product that is presented to the world. Love is the general criterion by which the rare photograph is judged. It must contain it to be not less than the best of which the photographer is capable."
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Source: Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics. Book by Rebecca Solnit, p. 235, 2007.
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More quotes by Eliot Porter
"Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject."
"You learn to see by practice. It's Just like playing tennis, you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it."
"Photography is a strong tool, a propaganda device, and a weapon for the defense of the environment...and therefore for the fostering of a healthy human race and even very likely for its survival."
"I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself - for the photograph - without consideration of how it may be used."
"Every photograph that is made whether by one who considers himself a professional, or by the tourist who points his snapshot camera and pushes a button, is a response to the exterior world, to something perceived outside himself by the person who operates the camera."