Alfred Stieglitz Quotes about Photography

In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.

Wherever there is light, one can photograph.

Photography my passion, the search for truth, my obsession.

My cloud photographs are equivalents of my most profound life experiences, my basic philosophy of life. All art is an equivalent of the artist’s most profound life experiences.

A woman artist could be one of those intuitive geniuses [who] have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience.

As a matter of fact, nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done, by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons. As the name implies, an amateur is one who works for love.

The ability to make a truly artistic photograph is not acquired off-hand, but is the result of an artistic instinct coupled with years of labor.

I do not object to retouching, dodging or accentuation as long as they do not interfere with the natural qualities of photographic technique.

The arts equally have distinct departments, and unless photography has its own possibilities of expression, separate from those of the other arts, it is merely a process, not an art.

Photography is my passion.

Let me here call attention to one of the most universally popular mistakes that have to do with photography - that of classing supposedly excellent work as professional, and using the term amateur to convey the idea of immature productions and to excuse atrociously poor photographs.

Photography as a fad is well-nigh on its last legs, thanks principally to the bicycle craze.

The fight for photography became my life.

If you can imagine photography in the guise of a woman and you’d ask her what she thought of Stieglitz, she’d say: He always treated me like a gentleman.

I have all but killed myself for Photography. My passion for it is greater than ever. It's forty years that I have fought its fight... I am not fighting to make a 'name' for myself. Maybe you have some feeling for what the fight is for. It's a world's fight... All that's born of spirit seems mad in these days of materialism run riot.

I am not a painter, nor an artist. Therefore I can see straight, and that may be my undoing.

Before the people at large, and for that matter, the artists themselves, understand what photography really means, as I understand that term, it is essential for them to be taught the real meaning of art.