What Is Street Photography?

Street photography is a genre of photography that focuses on capturing candid moments in public places, typically streets, parks, or urban environments. It aims to document the everyday life of people, portraying the essence of society and its surroundings. Unlike studio photography, street photography embraces spontaneity and the unexpected, providing a glimpse into the authenticity of human experiences.

The Art of Capturing the Moment

Street photography requires a keen eye, quick reflexes, and a deep understanding of the environment. Photographers must be observant, anticipating and capturing fleeting moments that tell compelling stories. It’s not just about clicking the shutter; it’s about encapsulating emotions, interactions, and narratives within a single frame.

Inspiring Street Photography Quotes

Here are some inspiring street photography quotes from renowned street photographers that shed light on the essence of this captivating art form:

“Photography is the art of observation.” – Elliot Erwitt

Elliot Erwitt beautifully encapsulates the essence of street photography. It’s all about keenly observing the world around us, discovering beauty in the mundane, and freezing those moments forever.

“In street photography, you have to be quick, anticipate, and capture the moment.” – Daido Moriyama

Daido Moriyama highlights the importance of being agile and responsive in street photography. The ability to anticipate and adapt quickly is crucial to capturing those decisive moments that make street photography so captivating.

“Street photography is a way of finding myself in the chaos of the city.” – Alex Webb

Alex Webb beautifully expresses how street photography serves as a means of self-discovery amidst the bustling chaos of urban environments. It allows photographers to connect with their surroundings and uncover hidden narratives.

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place.” – Joel Meyerowitz

Joel Meyerowitz emphasizes that street photography is not just about extraordinary subjects but also about finding beauty and intrigue in the ordinary. It encourages photographers to seek out unique perspectives and stories in everyday life.

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

Elliott Erwitt reminds us that photography has the power to communicate emotions and narratives without the need for words. Street photography allows us to tell stories through visual imagery, capturing the essence of a moment in a single frame.

“Street photography is like life itself – unpredictable, fascinating, and full of stories waiting to be told.” – Matt Stuart

Matt Stuart beautifully compares street photography to life, highlighting its unpredictability and the wealth of captivating stories that unfold in the streets. It encourages photographers to embrace the spontaneity and embrace the richness of everyday life.

“I don’t shoot what it looks like, I shoot what it feels like.” – David Alan Harvey

David Alan Harvey emphasizes the importance of capturing the emotions and atmosphere of a scene rather than merely focusing on its visual appearance. Street photography allows photographers to evoke feelings and create a sensory experience for viewers.

“The best camera is the one that’s with you.” – Chase Jarvis

Chase Jarvis emphasizes that the most important aspect of photography is not the gear but the act of being present and ready to capture the moment. Street photography celebrates the accessibility and spontaneity of the craft, reminding us that great shots can be taken with any camera.

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it.” – Irving Penn

Irving Penn beautifully describes the impact of a powerful photograph. Street photography has the ability to convey truths, evoke emotions, and provoke meaningful introspection. It has the power to inspire change and transform the viewer’s perspective.

“Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

Elliott Erwitt’s quote reminds us that street photography is not solely about the subjects we capture but about our unique perspective as photographers. It encourages us to see the world with a discerning eye and to find beauty in unexpected places.

The Impact of Street Photography

Street photography has a profound impact on both photographers and viewers alike. It serves as a visual documentation of our society, reflecting the diversity, struggles, and triumphs of everyday life. Street photographs can evoke empathy, challenge preconceived notions, and provoke thought. They have the power to transcend cultural boundaries, capturing shared human experiences and sparking conversations.

Street photography also inspires creativity and encourages individuals to explore their surroundings with a fresh perspective. It celebrates the beauty of fleeting moments, trains the eye to notice details often overlooked, and nurtures a deeper appreciation for the world around us.

Conclusion

Street photography is a captivating art form that allows us to experience the essence of everyday life through visual storytelling. The quotes mentioned above provide valuable insights into the world of street photography, inspiring photographers to observe, capture, and tell stories through their lenses. Emphasizing the art of observation, the power of anticipation, and the ability to find beauty in the ordinary, these quotes remind us of the unique and transformative nature of street photography.

In conclusion, street photography quotes serve as a source of inspiration and guidance for photographers seeking to explore the world through their lenses. They capture the essence of this captivating art form, reminding us of the importance of observation, storytelling, and the ability to find beauty in the mundane. So grab your camera, hit the streets, and let these quotes ignite your passion for capturing the fleeting moments that define our urban landscapes.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What equipment do I need for street photography?

Street photography can be done with a wide range of cameras, from professional DSLRs to compact cameras or even smartphones. The key is to have a camera that you are comfortable with and that allows you to capture the moments quickly and discreetly.

Are there any legal issues with street photography?

Laws regarding street photography may vary from one country or region to another. It’s important to familiarize yourself with the local laws and regulations regarding photography in public spaces. Generally, if you’re photographing people in public places where there is no expectation of privacy, you are within your rights as a photographer.

How do I approach strangers for street photography?

When approaching strangers for street photography, it’s essential to be respectful and considerate. 

Explain your intentions, ask for permission if necessary, and engage in a friendly conversation. Building a rapport with your subjects can result in more authentic and compelling photographs.

How can I improve my street photography skills?

Improving your street photography skills takes practice and patience. Experiment with different techniques, compositions, and perspectives. Study the work of renowned street photographers, attend workshops or photography meetups, and most importantly, keep exploring and capturing the world around you.

What are some famous street photographers to follow for inspiration?

There are many influential street photographers whose work can inspire and educate. Some notable names include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, Vivian Maier, Mary Ellen Mark, and Martin Parr. Follow their work and explore their unique approaches to street photography.

Afterword

We hope that you find this article helpful to mount your metal prints. Thank you for reading and you’re always free to leave a comment. If you find this article interesting, consider checking out one of our recently published posts. A few of them showcase advancements in technology such as AI Art Generators. On the other hand, if you’re looking towards Photography, we also offer great articles for your inspiration. We also have multiple articles that talk about the various printing mediums for wall art. May these articles give you inspiration for your next print!

Find them here:

AI Art Generators : Img2Img
Stable Diffusion Tips and Tricks
Stable Diffusion : AI Art Generator Spotlight
The Printing Mediums of Wall Art
The Top Food Photography Trends to Try Now
40 Daido Moriyama Quotes to Improve your Street Photography
The Beauty of Everyday Life: Street Photography Tips and Techniques
46 Garry Winogrand Quotes for Better Street Photography

We enjoy reading your comments and insights with our posts! Should you have any questions or concerns, feel free to leave them below! -Mark

The post Inspiring Street Photography Quotes appeared first on Photogpedia.

Below, we’ve listed 40 of the best quotes from the legendary documentary photographer, which are sure to inspire, motivate, and help take your photography to the next level.

For over 50 years Parr has been capturing the quirkiness and beauty in everyday life. He is known for his candid photography, which he believes “adds an extra dimension” to his work.

His photographs are instantly recognizable for their use of color, and witty style that is compellingly beautiful and subtly humorous.

Parr himself defines his photography as “a mixture of documentary observation and staged comment.”

If you enjoy the article or find it helpful, then don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc) and check out Headshots.

Martin Parr Quotes

From the moment the tourist enters the site, everyone has to be photographed in front of every feature of note… The photographic record of the visit has almost destroyed the very notion of actually looking. 

Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work. 

I accept that all photography is voyeuristic and exploitative, and obviously I live with my own guilt and conscience. It’s part of the test and I don’t have a problem with it.

All types of photography are important. For me, vernacular photography is essential as it provides a record of a moment, of important events in peoples’ lives, whereas many documentary or artistic photos are produced for a specific purpose. There is an urgency in vernacular photography that you don’t necessarily feel in professional photography.

Fashion pictures show people looking glamorous. Travel pictures show a place looking at its best, nothing to do with the reality. In the cookery pages, the food always looks amazing, right? Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.

When a mother takes pictures of her children on the beach, she doesn’t take herself for an artist; she does it for love, which is an excellent reason, from my point of view. 

Everyone is a photographer now, remember. That’s the great thing about photography. 

Quotes on Photography Style

I am what I photograph. 

With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist.

My black-and-white work is more of a celebration, and the color work became more of a critique of society.

We are drowning in images. Photography is used as a propaganda tool, which serves to sell products and ideas. I use the same approach to show aspects of reality.

My photography is an observation of the western world’s middle classes and their endless quest for material abundance. 

The fundamental thing I’m exploring constantly is the difference between the mythology of the place and the reality of it… Remember I make serious photographs disguised as entertainment. That’s part of my mantra. I make the pictures acceptable in order to find the audience but deep down there is actually a lot going on that’s not sharply written in your face. If you want to read it you can read it.

It is part of my agenda to take photos that can fit into all the outlets for photography, from the gallery wall to the magazine or newspaper page. That, to me, is using photography at its best.

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.

Finding your Subjects

What interests me most is to take pictures of things people don’t really care about.

I try to photograph my own and society’s hypocrisy.

The idea of England in decline is very attractive.

If there is any jarring at all in my photographs, it’s because we are so used to ingesting pictures of everywhere looking beautiful.

I looked around at what my colleagues were doing, and asked myself, “What relationship has it with what’s going on?” I found there was a great distortion of contemporary life. Photographers were interested only in certain things. A visually interesting place, people who were either very rich or very poor, and nostalgia.

I am only photographing what is obvious, and part of my way of working is to tap into people’s prejudices and depict all aspects of things happening in today’s society. I give people an opportunity to air their prejudices, and if they want to say the working class is scruffy and dirty, then the pictures exist to illustrate that thesis. 

Photography is, by its nature, exploitative. It’s whether you use this process with a sense of responsibility or not. I feel that I do so. My conscience is clear.

I often think of what I photograph as a soap opera, where I am waiting for the right cast to fall into place.

Quotes on Photography Technique

I go straight in very close to people and I do that because it’s the only way you can get the picture. You go right up to them. Even now, I don’t find it easy. I don’t announce it. I pretend to be focusing elsewhere. If you take someone’s photograph it is very difficult not to look at them just after. But it’s the one thing that gives the game away. I don’t try and hide what I’m doing – that would be folly.

When I first started learning how to take photographs, you had to spend the first six months figuring out what an f-stop was. Now you just go and take pictures. Nobody thinks about technical issues anymore because cameras or camera phones take care of that automatically.

I see things going on before my eyes and I photograph them as they are, without trying to change them. I don’t warn people beforehand. That’s why I’m a chronicler. I speak about us and I speak about myself. 

I love playing the game of fashion photography without knowing what the rules are. 

Martin Parr’s Tips for Better Photography

You have to take a lot of bad pictures. Dont’ be afraid to take bad pictures… You have to take a lot of bad pictures in order to know when you’ve got a good one.

The easy bit is picking up a camera and pointing and shooting. But then you have to decide what it is you’re trying to say and express. 

Unless it hurts, unless there’s some vulnerability there, I don’t think you’re going to get good photographs. 

Find something you are passionate about and shoot your way through this obsession with elegance and you will have a potentially great project. 

Get out there and do it. If it’s good, it will be seen. There is no such thing as a brilliant new contemporary photographer who is undiscovered.

What’s your Favorite Martin Parr Quote?

Have a favorite Martin Parr quote? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others.

To see more of Martin Parr‘s photography, check out his image archive on Magnum Photos website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Check out the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

Related Quote Articles:

• Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes
• Elliot Erwitt Quotes
• Saul Leiter Quotes
• The Best Street Photography Quotes

The post Martin Parr Quotes: Creating Fiction out of Reality appeared first on Photogpedia.

David LaChapelle Quotes

I believe in a visual language that should be as strong as the written word.

I’m a photographer, period. I love photography, the immediacy of it. I like the craft, the idea of saying ‘I’m a photographer.

My idea was that if I took a picture of somebody and years later, or whenever, they would die and if someone wanted to know who this person was, they could take one of these pictures and it would tell who the person was.

Pictures are an escape. They should be bigger than life. In the same way, celebrities provide an escape from the mundane. They are photographed so we can worship them – so they are worthy of our worship.

The key is to photograph your obsessions; whether that’s old people’s hands or skyscrapers. Think of a blank canvas, because that’s what you’ve got, and then think about what you want to see – not anyone else.

David LaChapelle Quotes on Style

You just do what you love, and then a style happens later on. People put it together and decide it’s yours. But some days you wake up and you’re happy and some days you wake up and you’re sad, some days you wake up and you’re feeling angry about things… if you can translate that through your work, and express those feelings, that’s okay as an artist.

I was working in this very bombastic style. I didn’t really know about style. I didn’t think about it:

I wanted it to provide an escape route, I wanted to make pictures that were fantastic and took you into another world, one that was brighter. I started off with this idea.

I did what I was interested in, what I was attracted to, what I was drawn to. I was drawn to color, and I was drawn to humor, and I was drawn to sexuality and spontaneity. It was all really intuitive. I never really thought, “Well this is the style…”

For me, it’s easier to like more things than to dislike them; I’m not a critic in that sense. I find it easier to like more, to be more open and enjoy more things, which has given me more opportunities.

People say photographs don’t lie, mine do.

I never want people to be repulsed with my pictures; I always want to attract people.

The minute you point a camera at something, you are manipulating the image, because you are cropping out whatever is to the left and right of it. The minute you put a light on someone, you are manipulating the image.

If you want reality take the bus.

LaChapelle on the Art of Photography

I went to art high school and thought I’d be a painter. Unfortunately I didn’t finish high school, but that’s always been part of my work.

I was always painting when I was a kid. But then when I handled a camera when I was 17, that was it for me. I loved photography. I would work 4 or 5 hours a day. It was like a calling.

Just as Renaissance artists provided narratives for the era they lived in, so do I. I’m always looking beyond the surface. I’ve done that ever since I first picked up a camera.

My biggest advice would be to take the pictures you want to take. Don’t think about the marketplace, what sells, or what an editor might say. And don’t think about style. It’s all bullshit and surface stuff.

Then I got this idea in my head that magazines were like a gallery and if you got your magazine page ripped out and someone stuck it on their refrigerator, then that was a museum – someone’s private museum.

It’s much harder to work for yourself, by yourself, than to create work for a gallery, because there are no limits and you can do anything you want. It’s always easier when you have a parameter, when you have a limit. You can work within the limit and push it and walk the line, but when you’re given absolutely no limits, it’s harder. You must really think. It’s more challenging.

I stopped working for magazines in 2006 because I felt I had said all I had to say in that world. I didn’t want to work with celebrities or do fashion any more. It didn’t occur to me that I could make photographs like this one for galleries. To be honest, I didn’t think the art world would have me.

I didn’t see any difference between being a photographer or being an artist. I didn’t make those boundaries. If someone wants to think it’s art, that’s great, but I’ll let history decide.

Fashion and the Business of Photography

I try to get the visual part of my brain turned on. It’s like a muscle that you need to start working. Once I do that the ideas just start coming.

The tools I learned photographing celebrities, now I want to use them to sell ideas.

I have this idea that you can use glamour and still have it represent something that matters.

In the fashion world, I was always an outsider, but I made people look good, so I had a career.

I’ve never wanted to be part of an inner circle of any scene. I’ve always been an outsider looking to question and subvert.

When I shoot, the image has to be there first. And photographs have always been manipulated – [Richard]Avedon retouched all his American west portraits. I could take a photo of you now and crop it to make it look a certain way. But, with me, the image has to come first.

My work is about making candy for the eyes. It’s about grabbing your attention. Even though my work is appearing in magazines I am trying to make a large picture. I want my photographs to read like a poster.

What’s your Favorite David LaChapelle Quote?

Have a favorite David LaChapelle quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Like the article? Share it with other photographers.

To see more of LaChapelle’s brilliant photography, check out the image archive on his official website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Head over to the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

Related Quote Articles:

• Cindy Sherman Quotes
• Richard Avedon Quotes
• Helmut Newton Quotes
• Fashion Photography Quotes

The post 30 David LaChapelle Quotes on Fantasy, Fashion and Fine Art appeared first on Photogpedia.

White’s work is characterized by its simplicity, deep feeling for nature, and love for abstract photography. His haunting images are often described as mystical or ethereal and are filled with metaphors that challenge us to think about our world differently.

White’s photographic style was formed during his exchanges with Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, and Ansel Adams. His conversations with Stieglitz, in particular, spurred his “meditations” about photography as a way to translate visual form into what he called the “suprasensual.”

For White, the photograph was a “mirage” and the camera was a “metamorphosing machine.”

White was also a founding member and editor of Aperture magazine, and from 1953 to 1957 he was the curator of exhibitions at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.

Below, we have listed 40 of our favorite Minor White quotes to inspire and help advance your photography skills.

Minor White Quotes

Photography is a language more universal than words.

I’m always mentally photographing everything as practice.

I asked if I could be a photographer, and [Alfred] Stieglitz said: ”Well, have you ever been in love?” and I said: “Yes,” and he said: “Then you can be a photographer.”

The spring-tight line between reality and photography has been stretched relentlessly, but it has not been broken. These abstractions… have not left the world of appearances; for to do so is to break the camera’s strongest point – its authenticity.

When I look at pictures I have made, I have forgotten what I saw in front of the camera and respond only to what I am seeing in the photographs.

At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.

Camera Quotes

Let the subject generate its own photographs. Become a camera.

How astounding is camera! With its unique ability to register continuous value or tone, camera can sanctify even the ugly and the dead, clarify the ordinary, and, in a moment, turn a hundred-and-eighty degrees to play iconoclast.

When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously.

Camera and eye are together a time machine with which the mind and human being can do the same kind of violence to time and space as dreams.

Minor White on Nature

I have often photographed when I am not in tune with nature but the photographs look as if I had been. So I conclude that something in nature says, ‘Come and take my photograph.’ So I do, regardless of how I feel.

Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts.

I seek out places where it can happen more readily, such as deserts or mountains or solitary areas, or by myself with a seashell, and while I’m there get into states of mind where I’m more open than usual. I’m waiting, I’m listening. I go to those places and get myself ready through meditation. Through being quiet and willing to wait, I can begin to see the inner man and the essence of the subject in front of me… Watching the way the current moves a blade of grass – sometimes I’ve seen that happen and it has just turned me inside out.

Creativity and Spirituality

To see through, not merely with, the eye, to perceive with the inner eye, and by an act of choice to capture the essence of that perception. This is the very core of the creative process.

The state of mind of a photographer while creating is a blank… For those who would equate “blank” with a kind of static emptiness, I must explain that this is a special kind of blank. It is a very active state of mind really, a very receptive state of mind, ready at an instant to grasp an image, yet with no image pre-formed in it at any time. We should note that the lack of a pre-formed pattern or preconceived idea of how anything ought to look is essential to this blank condition. Such a state of mind is not unlike a sheet of film itself – seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second’s exposure conceives a life in it. (Not just life, but “a” life).

One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.

While we cannot describe its appearance (the equivalent), we can define its function. When a photograph functions as an equivalent, we can say that at that moment, and for that person the photograph acts as a symbol or plays the role of a metaphor for something that is beyond the subject photographed.

No matter how slow the film, spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.

To get from the tangible to the intangible… a paradox of some kind has frequently been helpful. For the photographer to free himself of the tyranny of the visual facts upon which he is utterly dependent, a paradox is the only possible tool. And the talisman paradox for unique photography is to work ‘‘the mirror with a memory’’ as if it were a mirage, and the camera a metamorphosing machine, and the photograph as if it were a metaphor… Once freed of the tyranny of surfaces and textures, sub-stance and form can use the same to pursue poetic truth.

When the photograph is the mirror of the man, and the man is the mirror of the world, then the Spirit might take over.

Photo Sequence and Montage

A sequence of photographs is like a cinema of stills. The time and space between photographs is filled by the beholder, first of all from himself, then from what he can read in the implications of design, the suggestions springing from treatment, and any symbolism that might grow from within the subject itself.

Before he has seen the whole, how unusually perceptive and imaginative the person must be to evolve the entire sequence by meditating on its single, pair, or triplet of essential images.

Sequences originate for me from some hidden place. Though I habitually play photographs against each other, or words against images in pairs, triplets, or rows of four with expectations of magic, sequences originate from within. And I prefer to let them. In fact I cannot seriously do otherwise than photograph on impulse and let whatever words will, flow spontaneously.

To engage a sequence we keep in mind the photographs on either side of the one in our eye.

In putting images together I become active, and excitement is of another order – synthesis overshadows analysis.

It is curious that I always want to group things, a series of sonnets, a series of photographs; whatever rationalizations appear, they originate in urges that are rarely satisfied with single images.

Before he has seen the whole, how unusually perceptive and imaginative the person must be to evolve the entire sequence by meditating on its single, pair, or triplet of essential images.

The Photo as a Self-Portrait

When I looked at things for what they are I was fool enough to persist in my folly and found that each photograph was a mirror of myself.

…all photographs are self-portraits.

Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.

The photographer projects himself into everything he sees, identifying himself with everything in order to know it and to feel it better.

The camera is first a means of self-discovery and a means of self-growth. The artist has one thing to say – himself.

Quotes for Better Photography

There’s no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I’m always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don’t give a damn how it got made.

…innocence of eye has a quality of its own. It means to see as a child sees, with freshness and acknowledgment of the wonder; it also means to see as an adult sees who has gone full circle and once again sees as a child – with freshness and an even deeper sense of wonder.

Creativity with portraits involves the invocation of a state of rapport when only a camera stands between two people… mutual vulnerability and mutual trust.

The photographer has the power and the talent to make his model come to life. In his creative state he works with, not from the model. In his creativity he is, and when he is, his model can be.

Very often I try to find something that matches a feeling I have. On the other hand, a lot of times I photograph with nothing specific in mind. I just play it as it comes. If it’s good, fine. I find ‘letting it happen’ relaxing, a playful vacation. Stimulating pictures almost always result.

The secret, the catch, and power lies in being able to use the forms and shapes of objects in front of the camera for their expressive-evocative qualities… the ability to see the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer’s expressive purposes.

Sometimes we work so fast that we don’t really understand what’s going on in front of the camera. We just kind of sense that, ‘Oh my God, it’s significant!’ and photograph impulsively while trying to get the exposure right. Exposure occupies my mind while intuition frames the images.

What’s your Favorite Minor White Quote?

Have a favorite Minor White quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc).

To learn more about Minor White’s photography, visit his archive on the Princeton website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Edward Weston Quotes
• Ansel Adams Quotes
• Alfred Stieglitz Quotes
• Landscape Photography Quotes

The post 40 Inspirational Minor White Quotes on Intuition and Found Photography appeared first on Photogpedia.

A documentary and landscape photographer, Josef Koudelka first came to international prominence as the anonymous Czech photographer who chronicled the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The images he produced were eventually smuggled out of Prague and published in the Sunday Times.

Thematically, his work reveals humanity from the depths of chaos, portraying ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and conflicts. Throughout his lengthy career he has established himself as the foremost chronicler of the changing landscape of Europe.

In this article, we’ll be sharing 25 of the best Josef Koudelka quotes. If you find the quotes helpful then we would be grateful if you could share the article with other photographers.

Josef Koudelka Quotes

I try to be a photographer. I cannot talk. I am not interested in talking. If I have anything to say, it may be found in my images.

I would like to see everything, look at everything, I want to be the view itself.

When I first started to take photographs in Czechoslovakia, I met this old gentleman, this old photographer, who told me a few practical things. One of the things he said was, “Josef, a photographer works on the subject, but the subject works on the photographer.

I don’t pretend to be an intellectual or a philosopher. I just look.

What matters most to me is to take photographs; to continue taking them and not to repeat myself. To go further, to go as far as I can.

The Work

I photograph only something that has to do with me, and I never did anything that I did not want to do. I do not do editorial and I never do advertising. No, my freedom is something I do not give away easily.

I never accepted any assignment, never photographed for money. I took photographs just for myself.

My work has no theme. I don’t care if my photographs get published, and I have no interest in “the news.” But the invasion of Prague was not news, it was my life.

[My] photographs are proof of what happened. When I go to Russia, sometimes I meet ex-soldiers… They say: “We came to liberate you….” I say: “Listen, I think it was quite different. I saw people being killed.” They say: No. We never… no shooting. No. No.” So I can show them my Prague 1968 photographs and say: “Listen, these are my pictures. I was there.” And they have to believe me.

The changes taking place in this part of Europe are enormous and very rapid. One world is disappearing. I am trying to photograph what’s left. I have always been drawn to what is ending, what will soon no longer exist.

Personally, I have had the good fortune of always being able to do what I wanted, never working for others. Maybe it is a silly principle, but the idea that no one can buy me is important for me. I refuse assignments, even for projects that I have decided to do anyhow. It is somewhat the same with my books. When my first book, the one on the gypsies, was published, it was hard for me to accept the idea that I could no longer choose the people to whom I would show my photos, that any one could buy them.

It never seemed important to me that my photos be published. It’s important that I take them. There were periods where I didn’t have money, and I would imagine that someone would come to me and say: “Here is money, you can go do your photography, but you must not show it.” I would have accepted right away. On the other hand, if someone had come to me saying: “Here is money to do your photography, but after your death it must be destroyed,” I would have refused.

I don’t like captions. I prefer people to look at my pictures and invent their own stories.

By [photographing theater] the same way I photograph real life, I learned to see the world as theater. To photograph the theater of the world interests me more… With the gypsies, it was theater, too. The difference was that the play had not been written and there was no director – there were only actors… It was the theater of life… All I had to know was how to react.

Devastation is photogenic.

Koudelka on Technique

Sometimes I photograph without looking through the viewfinder. I have mastered that well enough, it is almost as if I were looking through it.

…photography was easier in the beginning. It’s like a dart game: at the beginning, you can toss them anywhere, they will always be well placed. Wherever you hit is the right place. But once you start building something, you realize that certain pieces are missing.

Listen, I have never had any hero in my life or in photography. I just travel, I look and everything influences me.

When I photograph, I do not think much. If you looked at my contacts you would ask yourself: “What is this guy doing?” But I keep working with my contacts and with my prints, I look at them all the time. I believe that the result of this work stays in me and at the moment of photographing it comes out, without my thinking of it.

Quotes for Better Photography

If I couldn’t shoot lots of photos, I would not be the photographer that I am. Still, the cost of film has often been a problem. At times, to save money, I had to work with remainders of movie-film, and even to buy film that was stolen. But when I have only three rolls of film left in my bag, I panic.

I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not ‘photographing’, in order to keep the eye in practice.

What I needed most was to travel so that I could take photographs.

I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind.

I am not interested in repetition. I don’t want to reach the point from where I wouldn’t know how to go further. It’s good to set limits for oneself, but there comes a moment when we must destroy what we have constructed.

If I am dissatisfied, it’s simply because good photos are few and far between. A good photo is a miracle.

What’s your Favorite Josef Koudelka Quote?

Have a favorite Josef Koudelka quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others through the usual channels (social media, forums, websites, etc).

To learn more about Koudelka’s photography, we recommend reading checking out his photographer profile on Magnum’s website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Robert Capa Quotes
• Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes
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• Photojournalism and Documentary Quotes

The post 25 Josef Koudelka Quotes: The Importance of Looking appeared first on Photogpedia.

Anton Corbijn is a photographer, film director and music video director. Born in the Netherlands in 1955, he made his first inroads in the world of professional photography in the mid-’70s. This was thanks to his work photographing the band Herman Brood & His Wild Romance, which served the mutual purpose of rocketing the band to fame and increasing the exposure of their photographer.

His success enabled Corbijn to segue into a high-profile career with the British magazine NME (New Musical Express), which gave him a chance to photograph some of the most distinctive and iconic performers in the world.

The crisply stylish and moody appearance of his black and white photography work perfectly encapsulated the look and feel of the post-punk cultural movement of the 1980s. He became particularly associated with the bands Depeche Mode and U2, directing a number of live concert films for the former and several music videos for the latter. But he has also brought his distinct brand of directorial and photographic flair to music videos for bands as diverse as Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Danzig and Nirvana.

Though Anton Corbijn’s success has transcended the medium of photography, throughout his film work recurs the theme of the power of black and white imagery, as well as the exquisitely subtle composition of his photographs, the sharp juxtaposition of light and shadow.

Below we’ve listed 45 of our favorite quotes from the legendary rock photographer which are guaranteed to inspire and help improve your photography.

Anton Corbijn Quotes

Photography has taken me from isolation.

I believe that photography is a very simple affair. I meet people – and the camera is only something like a recording machine. My work has nothing to do with the circus that other people create, although of course that can also result in an excellent photo.

My way in for photographing people is really their work. I’m always interested in what people make, and then I photograph the person. Sometimes the person is a disappointment. But that’s the risk. It informs me a lot about the character of a person if I know their work first.

My biggest fear always is that I’ll photograph an idea rather than a person, so I try to be quite sensitive to how people are.

I’ve done an incredible amount of painters. It’s an area, for me, where there’s more mystery left. I’ve photographed so many musicians, I’ve been in studios so often, I know the whole process. The mystery’s gone from it. I think it’s important to keep mystery into our lives. There’s a longing connected with it.

I have always felt that if you take a picture of a person, the picture not only has to say something about that particular person, but also say something about the photographer. Why else would you have one photographer take the picture and not the other? So the challenging part is taking a photograph that stands out, and also producing an end result that doesn’t resemble anything you’ve ever seen before.

As an artist, you say something about yourself in your work. That is what distinguishes your own work from that of others.

If you make something with love and, you know, passion and you tell a real story, I think it will always find an audience somehow, you know.

Corbijn on his Career

My start as a photographer was very simple and not based on any knowledge of it or wanting to create a masterpiece. I was obsessed with the music world and tried to find a way to be part of it. By borrowing my dad’s camera once, and taking it to a free daytime concert in our town, where I took a few shots, I became convinced that this was my calling. Only then did I start to have an interest in photography itself, but for a long time musicians were my only subjects.

For me N.M.E. was a very big thing. When I first came to the United Kingdom I started taking pictures for them and I became their main photographer for five years, and that’s really been the basis of everything I’ve been doing since.

In England, I’m already labeled a rock photographer, which is a little insulting, because I’m not a rock photographer at all.

[On being called the greatest Rock photographer] It narrows the way you judge a photograph – I really try to take photos that go beyond a person’s notoriety, and although I don’t always succeed, of course, it is what I aim for, and that way we can relate to a fellow human instead of a celebrity in the photograph. But if you already label the photo a certain way, it will be looked at a certain way. That is why I call myself a portrait photographer. In any case, I have, for the last thirty-plus years, done series on painters, actors, and others. The world in front of my camera is a lot broader than just music – that is more the past, I’d say.

I never really enjoyed getting a portfolio together then sending it out whereas putting up the website is quite an enjoyable experience. The net’s just a much faster and more modern way to distribute things and you have to embrace it.

… yes, I’ve become a little more professional – which I don’t really want to be but I can’t help it at some point.

Now I’m on my fifth period. I take a lot of photographs of painters like Lucian Freud and Richard Prince.” Why? “I’m a frustrated painter. You’re totally your own boss. You don’t have to travel.

I have never understood models. I find it really hard to find beauty in that or to discover beauty because the beauty was so obvious. I have never understood models. I find it really hard to find beauty in that or to discover beauty because the beauty was so obvious.

Everybody is a photographer now, so it’s very democratic in a sense. There’s an imagery overload, so it’s really hard to get any message across in photography these days. And anything can be manipulated, so the ideal of the camera being the truth teller is also gone. If I were young today, I’m not sure I would have chosen the same career path. I would probably have been a painter instead.

Music Video Quotes

Apart from photography and music videos, I also do graphic design.

There’s only one music video that had an emotional impact on me, and that’s ‘Hurt’ by Johnny Cash. That’s exceptional. There is no music video I can think of apart from that one that really reaches you inside.

My photography changed from being more documentary-like to arranging things more, and that came into being partly because I started doing music videos, and I incorporated some things from the music videos into my photography again, by arranging things more.

When I started doing music videos in the early 80’s, the videos would look like a photographer making a film because the camera never moved, but in the end, the videos became much more filmic. Simultaneously, the experience of making videos worked back into my photography. I started to use stylists and props, and I became much more actively involved in what happened in front of the camera.

The Transition to Filmmaking

I’m not educated as a filmmaker, so it’s quite a jump for me.

Directing film is the hardest thing I have ever done.

[on finaning his first film] Well I actually had to sell the house afterwards. I thought I was going to get the money back but it didn’t work out. I didn’t have an agent so I took the worst contract you could imagine. [Laughs] Quite a few people made money on it but I didn’t. So that was a lesson learned.

I wanted to make a film as an artist, and it’s going to have to find an audience, you know. I don’t know how big the audience will be.

For many years I wanted to do a film, but I never had the courage to clear my desk and say, ‘OK I’ll take a year off and do a film.’

I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you’ve never made a film, you’re not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.

A lot of scripts that I was given I didn’t feel were right for me, because I didn’t feel anything for them – I didn’t feel like I was going to change in life and start directing.

I don’t want to knock photography, and I don’t feel that film is up there but photography isn’t. I think they’re next to each other really, you know. There’s an incredible strength to a still picture. Or there can be an incredible strength to a still picture that can outlive you. That can outlive a film.

I’m used to depending on my gut feeling in photography, and it’s a very low-key and quick way of working. With film-making you pretty much have to put aside a whole year of your life. That can be tough, but the great thing is that you may end up creating something that a lot of people will see.

My learning process in photography has stagnated, but with film-making, I have had to learn how to tell a story, and I’m sure this new knowledge will be beneficial for my photography in the end.

Corbijn on Photography Technique

I work using the Brian Eno school of thinking: limit your tools, focus on one thing and just make it work… You become very inventive with the restrictions you give yourself.

I’m a very, very basic photographer. The main strength of my pictures, I guess, is the mood and feel I get out of the people that I meet. But technically I don’t think I’m very advanced. That never interested me.

I don’t have lights, I don’t have assistants, I just go and meet somebody and take a photograph. That’s really basic, and that’s how I used to work when I was 17 or 18 in Holland.

I take my work seriously, but there is also a lot of fun involved in these pictures. People dress up or do silly things. It’s partly because I don’t arrive with a big team. I just go around with a camera and maybe I have my assistant with me, but that’s it. So it doesn’t feel like I’m invading much of their world or threatening them.

The blurriness and the grain that I use, for me, is close to life. I find things that are very static and very sharp and very well-lit and all that is not how I experience life.

My work is not quite perfect. Perhaps it still contains something of life. Because perfection often prevents the work from breathing.

I feel the imperfection is much closer to how life is than perfection.

A photo doesn’t need to be perfect to fascinate.

I don’t crop my images and I always shoot handheld. By doing that I build in a kind of imperfection and this helps to emphasize reality.

Analog Photography and Digital

Analog is more beautiful than digital, really, but we go for comfort.

I still work in analogue. There are some elements of digital photography that I don’t really like, such as the fact that you see the results immediately. I’ve always thought photography was a bit of an adventure so to come home with the film, develop it then look at the results has more of a sense of excitement. Digital changes your end results because if you think it’s not totally there then you are going to shoot it differently – you get the perfect image but that kills it for me as I like the imperfection.

I am always wondering why people throw away film and go for video when they want video to look like film. It’s like if you want your CD to sound like vinyl, why throw away the vinyl? With photography I like a lot of the post-process to be digital but I like to shoot on film. So it’s the best of both worlds for me.

For square format I use a Hasselblad and for 35mm I use a Leica – they’re both beautiful cameras.

Photoshop is a different matter as it’s post-production really. It’s like an extension of your darkroom so I have no problem with it – although you do see many examples of it being used badly. I’m trying to get to grips with it. With the whole digital thing I sometimes feel like everyone’s been driving cars and I’ve been taking the bus. Inevitably, I’ll have to change at some point as I feel that companies are investing more in digital technology now so you’re left with paper and film that are no longer as good. I took a beautiful picture of Nelson Mandela recently, which we worked on for a week in Photoshop until it ended up a perfect picture, but it had lost all the soul … so we printed the original.

What’s your Favorite Anton Corbijn Quote?

Have a favorite quote from the list? Know any other Anton Corbijn quotes that would make a great addition to the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Also, don’t forget to share it with others.

To learn more about Anton Corbijn’s photography head over to his official website or follow him on Instagram.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Check out the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

More Quote Articles:

• Herb Ritts Quotes
• David Bailey Quotes
• Richard Avedon Quotes
• 150+ Portrait Photography Quotes

The post 45 Anton Corbijn Quotes on Rock Photography, Mystery and Imperfection appeared first on Photogpedia.

Below you’ll find over 100 of the greatest fashion photography quotes that are guaranteed to inspire and give you plenty of new ideas for your next photo shoot.

Editor note: This article is constantly being updated, so remember to bookmark the page and keep checking back for more fashion photography inspiration from the masters of the medium.

Fashion Photography Quotes

Fashion is an expression of the times. Elegance is something else again.

Horst P Horst

The truly fashionable are beyond fashion.

Cecil Beaton

The best fashion show is definitely on the street. Always has been, and always will be.

Bill Cunningham

I never considered myself a fashion photographer. I’ve never really been interested in fashion. The reason I did fashion was that I liked what was in the frocks.

David Bailey

Fashion is about who you want to be, not who you are, it’s therefore artificial… it’s funny and it’s sad and it’s a little crazy. But I would want those elements to be in any photograph I took.

Richard Avedon

Fashion is about who you want to be, not who you are, it’s therefore artificial… it’s funny and it’s sad and it’s a little crazy. But I would want those elements to be in any photograph I took.

Richard Avedon

What is Fashion Photography

Fashion photography is foremost fiction. The fantasy is everything because ever since [the images] grow in your head you construct something together. Then you get the right person for it, the right people. You go to the right place, and then the little thoughts you had become images – that is what you call fantasy.

Peter Lindbergh

As a child I loved picture books and at school I looked at fashion magazines a lot – they were comics of photography for me. Fashion photography seemed the only photography that allows you to express fantasy, romance, dreams, and escapism. You think of photography as being a tool to tell the truth, but in fashion photography there is a different kind of honesty.

Tim Walker

Most photographers go and photograph something that they see, that exists, and that somebody else has created – they document it. But fashion photographers have to create what they’re going to photograph. We have to go into the thought and build it up, get a girl, get a guy, get a situation, get the house, get the decor. It’s the meaning of the word photography: “writing with light.”

Mario Testino

Before 1960, a fashion photographer was tall, thin and camp. But we three are different: short, fat and heterosexual.

Brian Duffy

I think a fashion photograph is almost a social document that will take you back. The older it gets, the more interesting it is. It shows you how people lived. In my pictures, anyway.

Helmut Newton

I always thought we were selling dreams, not clothes.

Irving Penn

When you’re a fashion photographer, you must inspire a dream.

Patrick Demarchelier

Each time I did assignments or editorials, I realized that I wanted to do something more. I saw that it wasn’t just about the clothes.

Herb Ritts

Working with Models

I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.

Ellen von Unwerth

This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.

Peter Lindbergh

I like to give freedom to the people I capture to let them express themselves in the way they want. The results are always very interesting and unexpected, and I think this is how magic works in a way to capture moments.

Peter Lindbergh

You can’t fuck and photograph at the same time. Taking fashion pictures of models is not a matter of arousal. It’s hard work.

Richard Avedon

First of all, a model has to have the perfect ability to show clothes and then for me, there has to be the complexities and the things I know about that have the things I know about, which have to do with the layering of what it is to be a beautiful woman: the vulnerability, the isolation.

Richard Avedon

I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked.

David Bailey

The Importance of Casting

If a girl looks like a model, she is not for my lens.

Norman Parkinson

A lot of photographers like models to be blank canvases – but bland girls don’t influence me. I don’t like playing with dolls; I like playing with people.

Mario Testino

I always like to meet the people I’m going to photograph. I need to have a conversation. I need to feel a vibe. I need to see what’s going on in the person. I’m not just interested in physical beauty. I really need a personality.

Mario Sorrenti

When you’re a well-known fashion photographer, modeling agencies call constantly. They’ll say, “This great girl is in town for three days. She’s excellent, she’s exciting. You’ve got to see her…” So I decided to really have a look at them. I opened up my studio and said, “Send anyone…” And I became quite addicted to the whole thing. I was curious to see how many girls would come. I couldn’t believe that there really were so many around.

Juergen Teller

Casting is the central point of my work, because I am not a transforming photographer – I can only shoot people [if] I accept the way they are. I am not a photographer to take any woman; any model and transform her into what you want.

Peter Lindbergh

The Fashion Portrait

For me, every photograph is a portrait; the clothes are just a vehicle for what I want to say. You’re photographing a relationship with the person you’re shooting; there’s an exchange, and that’s what that picture is.

Peter Lindbergh

I didn’t try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses.

David Bailey

A fashion picture is a portrait just as a portrait is a fashion picture.

Irving Penn

I am a portrait photographer. I treat fashion photography like a portraitist… It is the atmosphere and the mood of a portrait which brings clothes to life.

Paolo Reversi

I always thought [my models] looked best when they were sitting in their pajamas smoking pot and getting pissed on a bottle of wine. So that’s what I documented. I liked the girls looking how they were naturally…

Corinne Day

I wanted to make women look good. That really intrigued me. To make a model look as though she owned the clothes.

Brian Duffy

Capturing Movement

One of the most powerful parts about movement is that it’s a constant surprise. You don’t know what the fabric is going to do, what the hair is going to do, you can control it to a certain degree and then there’s a surprise.

Richard Avedon

Never pose your subjects. Let them move about naturally… All great photographs today are snapshots.

Martin Muncaski

When I was modeling, I was always told that I couldn’t move and I should look to the left and the right. When I started to be a photographer, I really encouraged my models to live in front of the camera. I give them roles to play. You get those moments where they show emotion and not just their physical beauty – that’s what I’m looking for.

Ellen Von Unwerth

If ever I took memorable pictures… it would have been because I insisted on seeing the clothes live, walked in, whirled and twirled in.

Norman Parkinson

Creativity and Fantasy

I began trying to create an out-of-focus world – a heightened reality better than real, that suggests, rather than tells you.

Richard Avedon

I still believe that the perfect fashion photograph is a photograph that does not look like a fashion photograph. It’s a photograph that looks like something out of a movie, like a portrait, maybe a souvenir shot, maybe a paparazzi shot, anything but a fashion photograph.

Helmut Newton

I have a notebook where I write down all my thoughts: the ideas, models and locations. If something I did not write it down, then forget everything.

Helmut Newton

Now everyone arrives with photos. This is called a mood board. Mood board means that someone who is inexperienced looks for a lot of photos mixes them together and says: You have to do something like that. Nobody has the creativity to think of something new.

Peter Lindbergh

When you have an idea, a narrative concept, it’s very easy to fill 30 pages up. Every picture has a reason. But when I have to just photograph fashion, I don’t know what to do after ten pages.

Peter Lindbergh

It seems, though, like a lot of photographers sit in their offices or in their studios now and look through fashion magazines and say, “Wow, that story is great! Let’s do something like that!”

Peter Lindbergh

I learned something very early in this business… if I was starting to work on a project, like a big story for Franca [Sozzani] for Italian Vogue, I would look at other pictures. But I learned very early that the more I was looking at other pictures, the less I knew what to do myself. So I figured out that you have to set that aside and just sit down, take a pencil and a piece of paper, and think what you want to do. That is the only way, I think, to do things that are important later.

Peter Lindbergh

The images are real in their own terms; that is what they are. As a fashion photographer, you are a documentary photographer within a fantasy land.

Tim Walker

My pictures are just accidents. I am not a director, merely the agent of chance.

Guy Bourdin

I often photograph something as if the subject matter was realistic, but it is actually a fantasy.

Juergen Teller

When I started to pose the question of how to take a fashion photograph, I would have to imagine certain things and I had a couple of ideas that I used. And I never used the technique I had of taking street photographs, because I thought that would cheapen the other work, so I tried to invent things which would be specifically fashion photographs, done in a specific way.

William Klein

My photos were in the beginning escapist, fantasy, they were aspirational, they would take you to another place — or they were just plain humorous. I was at the top of the magazine world, it was everyone’s dream job who wanted to do that type of photography and I was living that!

David LaChapelle

If you want reality take the bus.

David LaChapelle

Shooting on Location

The world is my studio.

Norman Parkinson

[I like to work] in sunshine. I never work in studios if I can help it, because working in a studio is such hardwork. The greatest photographs always have in them some sort of unplanned accident: the movement, the fun, the gaiety.

Norman Parkinson

Within two hours of where I live, you have mountains and desert as location. I like the natural elements that abstract into light, texture, shape and shadow.

Herb Ritts

I have an instinct for finding the odd location, the dismissed face, the eerie atmosphere, the oppressed mood.

Deborah Lou Turbeville

Sometimes it happens, not very often, that God chooses to give me that ray of sunshine or that cloud, at the right moment. That’s why I work outside, because I know that in the studio God can’t do anything for me, all he could do would be send a thunderstorm that cuts off the electricity. Outside he can help me, he could also fuck me up by sending a lot of rain, that would make it difficult, but he very rarely sends me light that’s no good to me. Practically any light, somehow or other, I can deal with.

Helmut Newton

I have always avoided photographing in the studio. A woman does not spend her life sitting or standing in front of a seamless white paper background. Although it makes my life more complicated, I prefer to take my camera out into the street… and places that are out of bounds for photographers have always had a special attraction for me.

Helmut Newton

The Business of Fashion Photography

Some photographers go to the foundations and beg to hold an exhibition or go off and marry rich women. Or worse yet, they become martyrs with a following. This is because they don’t know how to make money. I don’t beg foundations or the government for money. I earn my living working with magazines and by doing advertising campaigns.

Richard Avedon

There’s always been a separation between fashion and what I call my “deeper” work. Fashion is where I make my living. I’m not knocking it. It’s a pleasure to make a living that way. It’s pleasure, and then there’s the deeper pleasure of doing my portraits. It’s not important what I consider myself to be, but I consider myself to be a portrait photographer.

Richard Avedon

A photographer without a magazine behind him is like a farmer without fields.

Norman Parkinson

Vogue will destroy itself if it goes on like that because everything that’s run by accountants eventually vanishes up its own ass. The only reason I did fashion in the first place was because I thought, “If I’m going to do photography my way, the only way to be creative and get paid is to do fashion.” So I stopped doing it in the ’80s when I started directing more and more commercials.

David Bailey

I have not taken inspiration from fashion shows. I don’t even really go to too many of the fashion shows – and have not for 15 years – because I don’t want to be inspired by the same things as everyone else. If everyone is inspired by the same things, then, of course, you all do the same pictures.

Peter Lindbergh

I think that a lot of people, especially people who work for fashion magazines, feel that their photographs at times are really pretty much discarded or thrown away immediately because when you work for a magazine people today really don’t save magazines like they used to. I just think that as long as one can work and have a good time at it and at least learn something then you’re not discarding what you do. You go out and do a photograph. It should be all about getting onto another photograph.

Bruce Weber

Fashion photography is actually like a cow now because a lot of idiots’ chew over it seven times. Look at the photos that are said to have changed photography: the photographers of that time went out in the morning, took a model with them and did what they wanted.

Peter Lindbergh

Fashion photography is always a commission, which comes with certain constraints and limits… When it is a commission, you have to explain yourself and seduce your client, and this is very difficult because you want to be sincere and they also need to like what you do, and this is not simple. But you know, from the beginning I learned that not everybody can like what you do. You just have to accept this.

Paolo Reversi

I think some of the most successful fashion pictures were just of beautiful clothes. I think that we have gone further and pushed it to kinky because clothes are such shit now. I shouldn’t say that but it’s not like when Irving Penn did a picture of an original Balenciaga where the dress was like architecture. We’ve become a world of H&M. If you are really selling T-shirts and jeans you have to be eye-catching because there are so many images out there. You are inundated all the time, whether it’s on TV or the Internet, buses, bus stops, taxis, or billboards. I guess the only way to get people’s attention is by trying to do something outrageous, but I don’t think it needs to be kinky to be good.

Steven Meisel

There are never any absolutes in the fashion business: one day you may like black and white, the next day you like colour. I think it’s a good lesson that we should never believe too much in any one thing – because the next day it’s out, and if we’re stuck to it, we’re out, too.

Mario Testino

A lot of fashion photographers will do the same sort of image for many years; it’s easier to be successful if you do that.

Mario Testino

On a lot of my shootings now we also make films, because you have to do that now for magazines. We made a lot of shorts recently. I think this year we made, like, 40 shorts. I really enjoyed it. I like that I have more time to take my pictures. And now – years ago when I used to have a job, I used to go away for a week to do ten pages. Now you go away for a day and a half to do ten pages. So, it’s kind of crazy, but, I can keep up with it. I’m proud that I can do it.

Bruce Weber

At the end of the day, photography is ninety-nine percent business, connections, and politics and one percent creativity.

Rankin

I have been heavily criticized in the past at magazines for my black-and-white photography and the aggressive punch – I prefer to call it strong emotion – to the pictures. When everything is virtually disposable I feel these pictures really stand out.

Max Vadukul

In 1952, Liberman said to me, I must cut back on the work you do for Vogue. The editors don’t like it. They say the photographs burn on the page. After some years, I began to understand that what they wanted of me was simply a nice, sweet, clean-looking image of a lovely young woman. I began to do that, and that’s when I became valuable to them and had 200 to 300 pages a year. Up to that point, I had been trying to make a picture. Then I began to try to make a commodity. That’s what I’ve been doing in fashion photography ever since.

Irving Penn

Advice for Aspring Fashion Photographers

You should be constantly asking yourself: What do I want to say next? What do I believe in? Who am I? What is my image? To be a successful photographer, you have to have a unique point of view otherwise you’ll get lost in the mix.

Mario Sorrenti

The average fashion photographer is like a wedding photographer to me – they just do the same old thing.

David Bailey

There’s nothing wrong with being a fashion photographer, but it’s a bit limited.

David Bailey

Make honest work, find your style and realise early on that it’s a business as well as an art. Enthusiasm, energy and creativity are all essential qualities but remember to also put your work out there and to have opinions. People won’t come to you. You need to reach them, and you’re competing with other ambitious individuals who also want what you want. Find your edge and run with it.

Rankin

Work is your life, it’s not a rehearsal. You work 7 days a week so you may as well enjoy those days.

Mario Testino

A good editor, a good stylist, and a good model are what makes a good fashion photograph. That and having a good rapport with your subject. If they’re comfortable with you, they’ll be comfortable in front of your camera.

Arthur Elgort

Many photographers feel their client is the subject. My client is a woman in Kansas who reads Vogue. I’m trying to intrigue, stimulate, feed her. My responsibility is to the reader. The severe portrait that is not the greatest joy in the world to the subject may be enormously interesting to the reader.

Irving Penn

We are not all photographers. We think we are, but we are not. Photography is a language with many styles and vocabularies. For example, everyone can write a postcard – but very few people can write a poem. I think one thing that the field is lacking is that there are not enough obsessives. Obsession is the great motor of creativity. Find your obsessions, your reasons for becoming a photographer. Find your pleasure – and not a cerebral one! Photography should not be devoir [an obligation or a duty; also the word for homework]. Photography is and should feel like a liberty!

Paolo Reversi

If I was advising someone else I’d say you have to work harder than anyone else. If it’s not more important than your love life, family, food, sleep, etc, you’re not gonna make it. What’s great about fashion is it never allows you rest on your laurels. You have to get in it to come in first. There is no union or pension and you’ll be actively dis-encouraged. It’s a lonely job.

Nick Knight

I believe in maniacs. I believe in type As. I believe that you’ve got to love your work so much that it is all you want to do.

Richard Avedon

… you don’t need to be technically great, because if you have a strong philosophy people will be moved by your pictures regardless.

Mario Sorrenti

People buy ideas, they don’t buy photographs.

Annie Leibovitz

My advice for the young? There are two dirty words in photography; one is “art,” and the other is “good taste.”

Helmut Newton

Real artists take chances and risks and they don’t worry about the repercussions or the correctness of things.

David LaChapelle

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

Cecil Beaton

Fashion Quotes from Non-Photographers

The cover is critical – on a shoot the only thing that really, really matters is the cover.

Stuart Selner

Fashion photography is about fantasy. The fashion pages in magazines are thirty pages of big pictures where the reader can be indulged.

Stuart Selner

Attitude is everything.

Diane von Furstenberg

Fashion has two purposes: comfort and love. Beauty comes when fashion succeeds.

Coco Chanel

Fashion is a language that creates itself in clothes to interpret reality.

Karl Lagerfeld

Fashion changes, but style endures.

Coco Chanel

Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.

Coco Chanel

Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.

Yves Saint Laurent

Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.

Sophia Loren

I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men.

Marlene Dietrich

Fashion is about dreaming and making other people dream.

Donatella Varsace

I have always believed that fashion was not only to make women more beautiful, but also to reassure them, give them confidence.

Yves Saint Laurent

Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.

Vivienne Westwood

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.

Coco Chanel

Fashion is not necessarily about labels. It’s not about brands. It’s about something else that comes from within you.

Ralph Lauren

I think that to be a really great fashion photographer, your pictures have to capture the imagination of people and be timeless, and very few photographers manage to do that.

Jerry Hall

Women should look like women. A piece of cardboard has no sexuality.

Alexander McQueen

Elegance is the only beauty that never fades.

Audrey Hepburn

Elegance is not standing out, but being remembered.

Giorgio Armani

What’s Your Favorite Fashion Photography Quote?

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Leiter embraced photography with a painter’s eye and turned ordinary everyday moments into beautiful abstract color imagery.

Leiter made a living shooting fashion during the heyday of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. By the 1980s though, he had faded into obscurity and for many decades he lived and worked virtually unknown.

In 2006, Leiter enjoyed a remarkable revival with the release of his book, Saul Leiter: Early Color. The book was an overnight success and firmly established Leiter as an early pioneer of color photography.

Below we’ve listed 36 of our favorite Saul Leiter quotes to inspire and help take your photography to the next level.

If you find this article helpful, then we would be grateful if you could share it with other photographers through the usual channels (blogs, forums, social media, etc).

Saul Leiter Quotes

I may be old-fashioned. But I believe there is such a thing as a search for beauty – a delight in the nice things in the world. And I don’t think one should have to apologize for it.

Seeing is a neglected enterprise.

I think I’ve said this before many times – that photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you had never paid any attention to. And as you photograph, one of the benefits is that the world becomes a much richer, juicier, visual place. Sometimes it is almost unbearable – it is too interesting. And it isn’t always just the photos you take that matters. It is looking at the world and seeing things that you never photograph that could be photographs if you had the energy to keep taking pictures every second of your life.

Some photographers think that by taking pictures of human misery, they are addressing a serious problem. I do not think that misery is more profound than happiness.

I have been told that some of my photographs maybe indicate that I am a painter.

Photography is about finding things. And painting is different – it’s about making something.

Everything is suitable to be photographed. Everything is a photograph.

Leiter on Photography Technique

Whatever complexity people find in the work that I do, must be there, because they find it. I have not set out to be complex.

My friend Henry [Wolf] once said that I had a talent for being indifferent to opportunities. He felt that I could have built more of a career, but instead I went home and drank coffee and looked out the window.

I didn’t try to communicate any kind of philosophy since I am not a philosopher. I am a photographer. That’s it.

I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.

When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.

I think when you take a photograph, if it turns out to be something good, there’s a kind of Zen element that takes place. It’s difficult to describe. People talk of controlling, but it’s not true. You can’t control the swirl of reality. If you’re very lucky, from time to time, you do something that is good.

I happen to believe in simple things and the beauty of simple things. I believe that the most uninteresting thing can be interesting.

Leiter on Finding Photos

I go out to take a walk, I see something, I take a picture. I take photographs. I have avoided profound explanations of what I do.

A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.

The street is like a ballet. You never know what is going to happen.

There are the things that are out in the open and then there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden.

I never thought of the urban environment as isolating. I leave these speculations to others. It’s quite possible that my work represents a search for beauty in the most prosaic and ordinary places. One doesn’t have to be in some faraway dreamland in order to find beauty. I realize that the search for beauty is not highly popular these days. Agony, misery and wretchedness, now these are worth perusing.

I take photographs in my neighbourhood. I think that mysterious things happen in familiar places. We don’t always need to run to the other end of the world.

A photographer’s gift to the viewer is sometimes the beauty in the overlooked ordinary.

Quotes on Equipment and Color

I liked different lenses for different times. I am fond of the telephoto lens, as I am of the normal 50 mm lens. I had at one point a 150 mm lens and I was very fond it. I liked what it did.

I think the art world is afflicted with mistaken notions during certain periods, and they become very prevalent, and people take them very seriously. But eventually they’re abandoned and seen as very silly and unimportant. Color has always aroused suspicion in the minds of certain people.

I experimented a lot. Sometimes I worked with a lens that I had when I might have preferred another lens. I think Picasso once said that he wanted to use green in a painting but since he didn’t have it he used red. Perfection is not something I admire. A touch of confusion is a desirable ingredient.

I find it strange that anyone would believe that the only thing that matters is black and white. It’s just idiotic. The history of art is the history of colour. The cave paintings had colour…

Saul Leiter Quotes for Better Photography

I admired a tremendous number of photographers, but for some reason I arrived at a point of view of my own.

If I’d only known which [photographs] would be very good and liked, I wouldn’t have had to do all the thousands of others.

I believe that there is something in you that strives for order, and within that order there’s a certain kind of mishmoshy confusion, and you bring this mishmoshy confusion, if you succeed, into some kind of order. There’s an element of control, and there’s also an element that just happens – if you’re very lucky. Artists need luck.

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music and to paint when I feel like it… Maybe I was irresponsible. But part of the pleasure of being alive is that I didn’t take everything as seriously as one should.

Check your Ego

I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learnt to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

We live in a world full of expectations, and if you have the courage, you ignore the expectations. And you can look forward to trouble.

I’m sometimes mystified by people who keep diaries. I never thought of my existence as being that important.

I am not immersed in self-admiration. When I am listening to Vivaldi or Japanese music or making spaghetti at three in the morning and realize that I don’t have the proper sauce for it, fame is of no use. The other way to put it is that I don’t have a talent for narcissism. Or, to put it yet another way, the mirror is not my best friend.

I’ve never been overwhelmed with a desire to become famous. It’s not that I didn’t want to have my work appreciated, but for some reason – maybe it’s because my father disapproved of almost everything I did – in some secret place in my being was a desire to avoid success.

I have a deep-seated distrust and even contempt for people who are driven by ambition to conquer the world… those who cannot control themselves and produce vast amounts of crap that no one cares about. I find it unattractive. I like the Zen artists: they’d do some work, and then they’d stop for a while.

The cream does not always rise to the surface. The history of art is a history of great things neglected and ignored and bad and mediocre things being admired. As someone once said “life is unfair.” There are always changes and revisions of the appreciation of art, artists, and photography and writers and on and on. The late art of Picasso is no good but then a revision takes place and then it becomes very good as the art records indicate. Things come and go.

What’s your Favorite Saul Leiter Quote?

Have a favorite Saul Leiter quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Like the article? Share it with other photographers.

To learn more about Leiter photography, check out the Saul Leiter Foundation website. We also recommend watching the brilliant 2013 documentary, In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

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Ellen Von Unwerth Quotes

I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.

I’m into capturing the moment. Sometimes, I’ll rip the camera out of my assistant’s hands and he’ll be shouting, “But there’s no film in the camera!” and I think, “Never mind! Let’s go.

Fashion is provocative and bold – and to create art there really needs to be a certain amount of freedom.

To be honest, I have always loved to shoot in black-and-white whenever I can. I just think it has more emotion, and it’s timeless, and it just fits better with my pictures.

Sometimes when you have somebody in front of the camera you catch another side to them and you can really see the human being.

Technique undoubtedly helps make photography magical, but I prefer to work with atmosphere. I think that the obsession with technique is a male thing. Boy’s toys. They love playing… but once you’ve perfected something you have to start searching for a new toy. I would rather search for a new model or location.

Everybody thinks they’re a photographer nowadays. It’s a bit of a problem sometimes. Everybody is not a photographer. You have to have an idea, you have to have a notion of lighting, how to capture moments. You know, it’s an art.

Ellen Von Unwerth on Models

I’ve always loved to portray women who are strong, who are playful, who are self-assured, and who really own their sexuality, which is why I love working with Claudia, and Naomi, and all those girls.

I love cinema from the ’50s and ’60s, mostly black and white films. I love Hitchcock, Fellini, I love the French actresses – Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren – the women really inspire me. For my pictures, I always make my girls look like movie stars.

[Von Unwerth on her dream subject] Marilyn Monroe (laughs). Can you imagine? She was my dream. If there’s one person in the world I would have loved to shoot, it would be her. She embodies everything I want to portray: vulnerability, sexuality, and strength… Imagine the cover!

I love beautiful women, I love to show their personality, their sexuality. It’s fashion photography, but with fewer clothes.

The women in my pictures are always strong, even if they are also sexy. My women always look self-assured. I try to make them look as beautiful as they can because every woman wants to feel beautiful, sexy and powerful. That’s what I try to do.

Working with Models

It’s part of my personality; I’m very open and to make jokes. We always have loud music. It’s all about the casting; I don’t ask all women to take off their clothes. It’s give and take. You have to know which girls will be on that wavelength. There’s a psychological game in coaxing models to relax. That’s the fun of it. It’s not just about taking the pictures, it’s also to do with communication and direction.

I don’t stand behind the camera drooling. Knowing that, the models are more likely to open up and relax.

When I was modeling, I was always told that I couldn’t move and I should look to the left and the right. When I started to be a photographer, I really encouraged my models to live in front of the camera. I give them roles to play. You get those moments where they show emotion and not just their physical beauty – that’s what I’m looking for.

I don’t want to objectify women, or cast them only in this ‘sexy’ light. I want to see every side of them. There are so many sid-none d-lg-none to women. That’s why some of my best shots come when the girls think the camera has stopped rolling, you’re seeing something different to what they give you when they know they’re being watched, a vulnerability.

There is always a little bit of humor in my pictures and maybe a little bit of a parody of femininity. Girls love to look beautiful and be sexy in front of the camera, especially when it’s with another woman.

I like to go big and wild! I want the models to be silly in front of the camera, I want them to live their life!

Quotes on Camera Phones and Selfies

It’s not special any more to be a photographer. Even when I take a picture, everybody stands next to me and takes the same picture. Five minutes later it’s on everyone else’s Instagram and I’m old news – so I’m forced to take pictures on my iPhone too.

It’s ok to take selfies from time to time, but it annoys me so much to see people walking down the street holding a camera or phone in front of them. I find it sad and, even with people who I really respect, when I see that their Instagram feed is just selfies, it makes me think ‘is that what you’re really all about? Don’t you have anything else to say?’ It’s a sign of the time. Something else will come along.

I find it crazy how women photograph themselves all the time. When I was a girl and looked in the mirror, my stepmother would come in and give me a slap. There was this idea that if you did that, the devil would get in you and steal your personality. Now everyone does this. I ask models sometimes, ‘Do you have to take so many selfies?’ And they say: ‘Only when I take selfies do I get likes.’ It’s sad! Narcissism is so celebrated in our society, sometimes people lose interest in other people.

Quotes on Pushing the Boundaries

I’m a kind of a rebellious character and I love to push the boundaries… I like to give people the freedom to express themselves. I love to bring out the personality and a little bit of the devil, a little bit of something naughty.

It’s good to shock. It’s not good to always be careful. It’s good to disturb a little.

I always give them something to do.When somebody’s not moving I get bored. I take two pictures and I say: ‘Great, I have it now.’ But I love the body in movement. I like the nude body in movement.

Objectifying is about the body; it’s showing the body in a sexy position. To me, the body is great, but it’s about expression and movement. To me, it’s very much in the eyes – most sex appeal, for me, comes from the eyes. It’s more about her personality, than just the body.

I love all the old pictures – of spanking and Bettie Page and corsets. But you can’t do spanking in fashion, so I wanted to do a project where I could really let go and get girls who also love those things.

A sexy picture can come from anyone who forms an intimacy with their subject. You can take a sexy picture of your cat if you want to.

There are so many rules these days with magazines – you cannot do this or that, or they wouldn’t choose the best pictures. So I thought, Why don’t I put my money and energy into my own thing so that every page is exactly how I want it and so I can push the boundaries. Because you can’t really do that these days. It is a fun way to push the boundaries and to go kind of punky and dirty.

What’s your Favorite Ellen Von Unwerth Quote?

Have a favorite Ellen Von Unwerth quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Like the article? Share it with other photographers.

To see more of Von Unwerth’s photography, check out her website and follow her on Instagram.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

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W Eugene Smith Quotes

Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold.

My pictures are complex and so am I.

I can’t stand these damn shows on museum walls with neat little frames, where you look at the images as if they were pieces of art. I want them to be pieces of life!

Each time I pressed the shutter release it was a shouted condemnation hurled with the hope that the picture might survive through the years, with the hope that they might echo through the minds of men in the future – causing them caution and remembrance and realization.

My camera, my intentions stopped no man from falling. Nor did they aid him after he had fallen. It could be said that photographs be damned for they bind no wounds. Yet, I reasoned, if my photographs could cause compassionate horror within the viewer, they might also prod the conscience of that viewer into taking action.

A photo is a small voice, at best, but sometimes – just sometimes – one photograph or a group of them can lure our senses into awareness. Much depends upon the viewer; in some, photographs can summon enough emotion to be a catalyst to thought.

Smith on Photojournalism

I think photojournalism is documentary photography with a purpose.

Photographic journalism, because of the tremendous audience reached by publications using it, has more influence on public thinking and opinion than any other branch of photography. For these reasons, it is important that the photographer-journalist has (beside the essential mastery of his tools) a strong sense of integrity and the intelligence to understand and present his subject matter accordingly.

Many claim I am a photographer of tragedy. In the greater sense I am not, for though I often photograph where the tragic emotion is present, the result is almost invariably affirmative.

I try to take what voice I have and I give it to those who don’t have one at all.

Humanity is worth more than a picture of humanity that serves no purpose other than exploitation.

… to became neighbours and friends instead of journalists. This is the way to make your finest photographs.

I think the only thing wrong with the word “documentary” is that it can give some people the idea that you can make absolutely dull pictures of the ingredients of something instead of the heart of something.

To have his photographs live on in history, past their important but short lifespan in a publication, is the final desire of nearly every photographer-artist who works in journalism. He can reach this phase only by combining a profound penetration into the character of the subject with a perfection of composition and technique – a consolidation necessary for any photographic masterpiece.

I think that basically all of my photographs are failures… I’m not saying that as a self negation or anything like that, I just don’t judge it upon it upon how “good” it was, but rather upon how I’d fail upon what I was trying to say… I think this “Tomoko in her Bath” personally is the best photograph I ever made, it came to say what I was trying to say.

Quotes on Capturing the Truth

The journalistic photographer can have no other than a personal approach; and it is impossible for him to be completely objective. Honest -yes. Objective – no.

The first word I would remove from the folklore of journalism is the word objective.

With considerable soul searching, that to the utmost of my ability, I have let truth be the prejudice.

I am constantly torn between the attitude of the conscientious journalist who is a recorder and interpreter of the facts and of the creative artist who often is necessarily at poetic odds with the literal facts.

I am an idealist. I often feel I would like to be an artist in an ivory tower. Yet it is imperative that I speak to people, so I must desert that ivory tower. To do this, I am a journalist—a photojournalist. But I am always torn between the attitude of the journalist, who is a recorder of facts, and the artist, who is often necessarily at odds with the facts. My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself.

Up to and including the moment of exposure, the photographer is working in an undeniably subjective way. By his choice of technical approach, by the selection of the subject matter… and by his decision as to the exact cinematic instant of exposure, he is blending the variables of interpretation into an emotional whole.

The Photo Essay

I bear in mind that I have to have an opener and closer. Then I make a mental picture of how to fill in between these two. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I’ll lie in bed and do a sketch of the pictures I already have. Then I’ll decide what pictures I need. In this way, I can see how the job is shaping up in the layout form.

In the building of a story, I being with my own prejudices, mark them as prejudices, and start finding new thinking, the contradictions to my prejudices, What I am saying is that you cannot be objective until you try to be fair. You try to be honest and you try to be fair and maybe truth will come out.

[I would list the picture to take, and other things to do. It began with a beginning, but it was a much tighter and more difficult problem at the end. I’d say, ‘Well, she has this relationship to that person. I haven’t shown it. How can I take a photograph that will show that? What is this situation to other situations?’

Here it becomes really like a playwright who must know what went on before the curtain went up, and have some idea of what will happen when the curtain goes down. And along the way, as he blocks in his characters, he must find and examine those missing relationships that five the validity of interpretation to the play.]

I don’t think a picture for the sake of a picture is justified – only when you consider the purpose. For example, I photographed a woman giving birth, for a story on a midwife. There are at least two gaps of great pictures in my pictures.

I have personally always fought very hard against ever packaging a story so that all things seem to come to an end at the end of a story. I always want to leave it so that there is a tomorrow. I suggest what might happen tomorrow – at least to say all things are not resolved, that this is life, and it is continuing.

The Importance of Emotion

Most photographers seem to operate with a pane of glass between themselves and their subjects. They just can’t get inside and know the subject.

I’ve never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.

The purpose of all art is to cause a deep and emotion, also one that is entertaining or pleasing. Out of the depth and entertainment comes value.

What uses having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?

W Eugene Smith Quotes on Technique

I didn’t write the rules – why should I follow them? Since I put a great deal of time and research to know what I am about? I ask and arrange if I feel it is legitimate. The honesty lies in my – the photographer’s – ability to understand.

[I crop ] for the benefit of the pictures. The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.

In music I still prefer the minor key, and in printing I like the light coming from the dark. I like pictures that surmount the darkness, and many of my photographs are that way. It is the way I see photographically. For practical reasons, I think it looks better in print too.

[on why he prints his own pictures] The same reason a great writer doesn’t turn his draft over to a secretary… I will retouch.

Negatives are the notebooks, the jottings, the false starts, the whims, the poor drafts, and the good draft but never the completed version of the work… The print and a proper one is the only completed photograph, whether it is specifically shaded for reproduction, or for a museum wall.

W Eugene Smith Tips for Better Photography

When a good picture comes along, I shoot it. Later I may find a better variation of the same shot, so I shoot all over again.

Available light is any damn light that is available!

Since I am somewhat adequate as a photographer, I remain with it.

Halsmann: What if nobody sees [the work]? Besides a few friends?

Smith: Answer this and you will see how artists have acted throughout the bloody ages. The goal is the work itself.

An artist must be ruthlessly selfish.

Hardening of the categories causes art disease.

Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors.

What’s your Favorite W. Eugene Smith Quote?

Have a favorite W. Eugene Smith quote from the list? Let us know in the comment section below.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page, or print it out, and refer to it next time you need some inspiration. Like the article? Share it with other photographers.

To learn more about W. Eugene Smith’s photography, check out his photographer profile on Magnum’s website.

Looking for more words of wisdom from master photographers? Visit the quotes section of Photogpedia for more great photography quotes.

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