John Paul Caponigro Quotes

We are the strongest filter we can place before the lens. We point the lens both outward and inward.

We're responsible for everything that's included in the frame. We're also responsible for what's not included in the frame. We're responsible for the way we frame the world.

Less information often leads to more interpretation.

Surfaces simultaneously reveal and conceal.

What we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see. Perception, belief, action, and change are codependent.

To be sure, not all moments are equally fleeting. Some moments last longer than others. And certain events do reoccur more than once and even recur repeatedly. Sometimes you do get more than one chance. Sometimes you don't. It helps to know how long a window of opportunity you have and if you'll get another chance.

We see the world through our experience.

All photographs are about light. The great majority of photographs record light as a way of describing objects in space. A few photographs are less about objects and more about the space that contains them. Still fewer photographs are about light itself.

Looking and seeing are two different things.

Photographs are never records of the way things are; they're records of the way things were.

A photograph is an invitation to look - and to look at looking.

It's one thing to make a beautiful thing; it's another thing to make a living thing.

Color is a powerful physical, biological, and psychological force.

Inquiry is more important than answers, for it is the questions we ask and the way in which we ask them that defines us.

Visual artists choreograph dances for the eyes, guiding visual journeys in specific ways. But when presented with little or nothing, the journeys of the eyes become erratic and finally still their restless searching. The eye and mind and heart grow quiet, come to rest, and begin to understand their own functioning more deeply.

Art is a journey of discovery.

Above all, remember that the computer simply isn't as intelligent as you are.

It's important that we regularly reconsider, revise, and expand our practices, as our capabilities and needs evolve, both to strengthen our understanding of them and to promote our awareness of new practices and their conscientious uses.

Mysterious spaces cause us to turn inward. Amid a rich upwelling of association, we encounter many aspects of ourselves. As we grow still, we come in contact with a unified, empty, yet full ground of our being. As our consciousness grows more spacious, we find connections between us and the wider world, a shared greater reality.

The frame frames a frame of mind.

Amid countless everyday miracles, I come in contact with something greater than myself and realize I am a part of it... I move in wonder through inspiration, reverence, gratitude, interconnectedness, transcendence, and grace.

Surfaces reveal so much. The marks painters make reveal so much about their work and themselves; their sense of proportion, line, and rhythm is more telling than their signature. Looking at the surfaces of nature may offer equivalent revelations. What do these shapes and patterns reveal about the world and their creator? Surfaces hide so much.

Every photograph is altered, to one degree or another.

We don't have enough words for photography. Can you imagine writers having only one word for writing?

Don't ask 'Should I ...?'. Instead, 'Ask what happens if I ...?'