Photography quotes: 20 inspirational phrases

Many quotes and thoughts from great photographers in our history help us to open our minds, eyes and heart to photography, the relevance of photography and how to do it consistently. Below are 20 essential photography quotes from some masters.

“Your first 10,000 photographs are the worst” (Henri Cartier-Bresson)

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it” (Ansel Adams)

“Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing beauty is what separates the simple image from photography. (Matt Hardy)

“Nothing happens when you stay home. I always make it a reason to carry the camera with me all the time… I only photograph what interests me at that moment.” (Elliot Erwitt)

“When I have a camera in my hand, I don’t know fear” (Alfred Eisenstaedt)

“Which of my photos is my favorite? The one I will do tomorrow” (Imogen Cunningham)

“Photography is a form of fiction. It is at the same time a record of reality and a self-portrait, because only the photographer sees it that way” (Gerard Castello Lopes)

“Who doesn’t like to wait can’t be a photographer” (Sebastião Salgado)

“You’ve got to push yourself harder. You’ve got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You’ve got to take the tools you have and probe deeper.” (Willian Albert Allard)

“If I see something on my viewfinder that looks familiar to me, I’ll do anything to change it.” (Garry Winogrand)

“To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.” (Henri Cartier-Bresson)

“If a photo isn’t good enough, it’s because you didn’t get close enough” (Robert Cappa)

“I always thought good pictures were like good jokes. If you have to explain them, the photos are just not good” (Anonymous)

“20 significant photographs in one year are a good result” (Ansel Adams)

“It can be a trap for the photographer to think that their best shots are the ones that were the hardest to capture” (Timothy Allen)

“The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to see.” (Ernst Haas)

“With black and white and all shades of grey, however, I can focus on the density of people, their attitudes and their looks, without them being parasitized by color” (Sebastião Salgado)

Essential Phrases About Photography | Photo: Elliott Erwitt

“The camera is a mirror endowed with memory, but incapable of thinking” (Arnold Newmann)

“The camera is an instrument that teaches us to see without a camera” (Dorothea Lange)

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the books you have read, the movies you have seen, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

“Photography is the poetry of immobility: it is through photography that the instants are seen as they are” (Peter Urmenyi)

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