Photography quotes
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside photography — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Photography and photographers have an inevitable development. They progress more or less by steps. Every five or ten years some new point of view is developed and young people are inclined to follow it."
"All art is a vision penetrating the illusions of reality, and photography is one form of this vision and revelation."
"It is just as important to bring people the evidence of the beauty of the world of nature and of man as it is to give them a document of ugliness, squalor, and despair."
"Photography has escalated almost exponentially! It is a language which covers almost every aspect of communication; factual and expressive."
"I think photography is being recognized and collected. Its values have certainly gone up and continue to go up."
"I am probably afraid that some spectator will not understand my photography - therefore I proceed to make it really less understandable by writing defensibly about it."
"There still is some opposition to it in some museums and art schools, but I think photography has really grown into a mature art form."
"I am always surprised when I see several cameras, a gaggle on lenses, filters, meters, et cetera, rattling around in a soft bag with a complement of refuse and dust. Sometimes the professional is the worst offender!"
"I've always thought photography was an art form, but it had very low appreciation in the beginning, except for some Europeans, and of course Stieglitz. Stieglitz always considered photography to be an art form and is the "father" of the creative concepts of the twentieth century."
"I do not think there is any question of photography being an art form!"
"In a strict sense photography can never be abstract, for the camera is incapable of synthetic integration."
"I don't write as many songs as I used to. But, I find myself writing for social media more - times have changed. And I love photography, so a lot of my creative energy gets caught up that way."
"That the outer man is a picture of the inner, and the face an expression and revelation of the whole character, is a presumption likely enough in itself, and therefore a safe one to go on; borne out as it is by the fact that people are always anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous. Photography offers the most complete satisfaction of our curiosity."
"When you say documentary, you have to have a sophisticated ear to receive that word. It should be documentary style, because documentary is police photography of a scene and a murder ... that's a real document. You see, art is really useless, and a document has use. And therefore, art is never a document, but it can adopt that style. I do it. I'm called a documentary photographer. But that presupposes a quite subtle knowledge of this distinction."
"Detachment, lack of sentimentality, originality, a lot of things that sound rather empty. I know what they mean. Let's say, "visual impact" may not mean much to anybody. I could point it out though. I mean it's a quality that something has or does not have. Coherence. Well, some things are weak, some things are strong."
"Privilege, if you're very strict, is an immoral and unjust thing to have, but if you've got it you didn't choose to get it and you might as well use it. You're privileged to be at Yale, but you know you're under an obligation to repay what's been put into you."
"... nature photographs downright bore me for some reason or other. I think: 'Oh, yes. Look at that sand dune. What of it?'"
"I'm sometimes called a 'documentary photographer' but... a man operating under that definition could take a sly pleasure in the disguise. Very often I'm doing one thing when I'm thought to be doing another."
"Do we know what we look like? Not really."
"Color tends to corrupt photography and absolute color corrupts it absolutely. Consider the way color film usually renders blue sky, green foliage, lipstick red, and the kiddies' playsuit. These are four simple words which must be whispered: color photography is vulgar."
