Ansel Adams Quotes about Photography - Page 2

A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.

You don't make a photograph just with a camera

To visualize an image (in whole or in part) is to see clearly in the mind prior to exposure, a continuous projection from composing the image through the final print.

I believe photography is a tool to express our positive assessment of the world. A tool to acquire ultimate happiness and belief.

A photograph is not an accident - is a concept. It exists at, or before, the moment of exposure of the negative.

It is easy to take a photograph, but it is harder to make a masterpiece in photography than in any other art medium.

The craft of photography is the key to good images.

The ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.

In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.

Photography is an investigation of both the outer and the inner worlds. The first experiences with the camera involve looking at the world beyond the lens, trusting the instrument will 'capture' something 'seen.' The terms shoot and take are not accidental; they represent an attitude of conquest and appropriation. Only when the photographer grows into perception and creative impulse does the term make define a condition of empathy between the external and the internal events.

Photography and photographers have an inevitable development. They progress more or less by steps. Every five or ten years some new point of view is developed and young people are inclined to follow it.

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term - meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching - there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

This profession [photography] is deserving of attention and respect equal to that accorded painting, literature, music and architecture.

We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium.

The dismal half-baked images of the average "reportage" and "documentary" photography are self dammning... the slick manner, the slightly obscure significance, the esoteric fear of simple beauty for its own sake - I am deeply concerned with these manifestations of decay. Gene Smith's work validates my most vigorous convictions that if the documentary photographs is to be truly effective it must contain elements of art, intensity, fine craft and spirituality. All these his work contains and we may turn to his work with gratitude, appreciation and great respect.

"Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?""

I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite.

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.

All art is a vision penetrating the illusions of reality, and photography is one form of this vision and revelation.

The technique of 35mm photography appears simple. One is beguiled by the quick viewing and operation, and by the very questionable inclination to make many pictures with the hope that some will be good.

The term accessories has come to include a host of photographic gadgets of questionable value.

These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.

It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.