photography quotes

collection of photography quotes

special thanks to
those of you that submitted these quotes for the photogenic contest
project 365 group flickr members for allowing me to showcase their photos here

If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough. -robert capa

photo by nancy barton

"To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things."
Ansel Adams

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
- Aaron Siskind

"blessed"
-sunghee

No, the camera can't steal the soul. But it can occasionally hold it hostage.
- author unknown

"...the joy in life doesn't usually come in long stretches for hours at a time, month after month, year after year . . . but in moments."
- unknown

photo by eric tamanaha

Photography is the beauty of life, captured. - Tara Chisholm

"You are a pest, by the very nature of that camera in your hand." - Princess Anne

“In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.”
Mary Schmich quotes

"My obsession with photography began when I had the cutest baby in the world (at least I thought so!) nearly 9 years ago and fell so completely in love. I wanted to capture her on film the way I saw her in my heart."
- Jen Findlay

photo by jen findlay

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
Dorothea Lange

"Time will never stand still and those moments that bring us such joy become memories in an instant. To capture such a moment and record it forever is truly monumental." - Joshua Atticks

By knowing a person, you know yourself. You become the person you photograph. You love that person as you love yourself. ~Anonymous

Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life.
Brian Andreas

photo by susan haglund

Maybe because it's entirely an artist's eye, patience and skill that makes an image and not his tools.
Ken Rockwell

By knowing a person, you know yourself. You become the person you photograph. You love that person as you love yourself. ~Anonymous

... a simple "love you."
-missy

“Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.”
-Sam Abell

You don't take a photograph, you make it.
-Ansel Adams

You don't take a photograph. You ask quietly, to borrow it. ~Author Unknown

photo by liz tamanaha

“There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.”
Ernst Haas

"There are two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." ~Ansel Adams

"A photograph taken today is a lifetime of yesterdays preserved for all the tomorrows." - author unknown

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety. ~Ansel Adams

"Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in Life." Vincent Van Gogh

photo by emilie ahern

"A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ~Eudora Welty"

I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it. ~Author Unknown

I find the blend of technique and creativity fascinating, sometimes frustrating, other times rewarding but always very therapeutic. - Thomas Folke Andersen

"the eyes are the windows to the soul"

photo by karin mosbarger

"As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs."" Sam Abell

A photograph is like the recipe - a memory the finished dish. ~Carrie Latet

When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls! ~Ted Grant

photo by amanda taylor

My photography teacher said, "If you don't take a photo every day, the camera will make you pay." I loved that.

"Jesus would have been one of the best photographers that ever existed. He was always looking at the beauty of people souls. In fact Jesus was constantly making pictures of God in people's life by looking at their souls and exposing them to his light." - Francis Bacon

"Sometimes I do get to places just when God is ready to have someone click the shutter!" - Ansel Adams


photo by caroline ikeji

"The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words."
by Elliott Erwitt

"the very best gift... is that anyone can experience those unexpected twinkles of joy that make a magical moment. At these moments, you feel true, deep joy because of a great new insight, a beautiful prospect, or a glimpse into the radiance of another soul. They are the magic moments when life seems better than you ever realized."
- Linda Eyre, A Joyful Mother of Children, p. 108-109

"Take a photo, it will last longer."

La Photographie est un couperet qui dans l'éternité saisit l'instant qui l'a éblouie.
and an approximative translation
"The Photography is a chopper which in the eternity seizes the moment which dazzled it."
(Henri Cartier-Bresson)

photo by caroline ikeji

The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to tranform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking - and looking. -Brooks Atkinson

I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it. ~Author Unknown

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand." Ansel Adams

photo by susan haglund

You don't take a photograph, you make it. ~Ansel Adams

Buying a Nikon doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner. ~Author Unknown

"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer."
Ansel Adams

Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.
- Yousuf Karsh

photo by liz tamanaha

"Capturing personalities, not pictures"
-submitted by yvonne

"Your first 10,000 photographs are the worst" by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

"Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay." Sam Abell

"If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera." ~Lewis Hine

photo by cindee bae

A true photograph need not to be explained, nor can it be contained in words. - Ansel Adams

"A picture is worth a thousand words"

"Take another picture with your click, click, click, click camera"
song lyrics by Bishop Allen

"A good snapshot stops a moment from running away." ~Eudora Welty

photo by Kendall Brunson

Everything around us, ourselves included, is in constant change. Photography is our means of capturing now - and to remember where we've come from. - Amanda Van

"Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure".
Tony Benn

"An image is better than one thousand words"
Confucius


photos by george lee

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence." ~Ansel Adams

Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs. - Ansel Adams

"The photographic image ... is a message without a code - Roland Barthes"

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words. - Ansel Adams


photo by liz tamanaha

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” - Aaron Siskind

"A smile happens in a flash, but the memory can last a lifetime."

"Photos may give insight into our lives, but memories of those times is what keeps them alive."
-unknown

photo by angela molenaar

A photograph is just a picture if it doesn't say anything.
- Anonymous

"Favorite People, Favorite Places,
Favorite Memories of the past ...
These are the joys of a lifetime
Those are the things that last" - Henry Van Dyke

A photograph is life on canvas in a blink of an eye. - myself

Photography is truth. - Jean-Luc Godard

photo by george lee

"When I look through the lens, I see life." - Ali Edwards

a photograph is a remembrance of your captured moment.

a photograph is a captured moment on paper.

“A photograph is a portrait painted by the sun.” - anonymous

photo by liz tamanaha