Elliott Erwitt Quotes

To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.

The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words.

Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.

Photography is an art of observation - it's about creating something extraordinary out of the ordinary. You choose a frame and then wait until the right time for something magical to come along and fill it.

All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice.

Photography is simply a function of noticing things.

If you're not a curious person, you're certainly not going to be a good photographer.

Good photography is not about Zone Printing or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more.

The best things happen when you just happen to be somewhere with a camera.

I am serious about not being serious.

I appreciate simplicity, true beauty that lasts over time, and a little wit and eclecticism that make life more fun.

Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.

It's about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organising them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.

Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.

Dogs don't mind being photographed in compromising situations.

After following the crowd for a while, I'd then go 180 degrees in the exact opposite direction. It always worked for me.

A picture should be looked at - not talked about.

If your subjects are eternal... they'll survive.

I like to think I keep my mind open. When I walk the streets I don't look for anything in particular. I come from a philosophy that believes you shouldn't have preconceived notions - that you don't need a gimmick. That you should just photograph what you react to - what you see.

You don't study photography. You do it.

Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times...I just shoot at what interests me at that moment.

It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby.

The work I care about is terribly simple. I observe. I try to entertain. But above all I want my pictures to be emotional. Little else interests me in photography.

I'm almost violent about that stuff - electronic manipulation of pictures. I think it's an abomination. I reject it all. I mean, it's OK for selling corn flakes or automobiles or for taking pimples out of Elizabeth Taylor's face, but it undermines the thing that photography is about, which is about observation and not about manipulation of images.

I am a professional photographer by trade and an amateur photographer by vocation.