Elliott Erwitt Quotes

Everybody's got to do something... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on.

• Children
• School
• High

Somehow Photoshop and the ease with which one can produce an image has degraded the quality of photography in general.

• Quality
• Photography

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.

• Art
• Interesting
• Photography

Professionally I've evolved with what's required, but the pictures I do for pleasure haven't changed, except for the cars in the background, the clothing. I haven't changed at all.

You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.

• Comedy
• Humanity

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

• Pretty
• Simple
• Photography

Now very often events are set up for photographers... The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist.

• Up
• Picture

The most awful museums are in China. They have magnificent stuff on display and just the worst way of displaying it. They just don't spend money on lighting and installation.

• Money

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

• Life
• Time
• True

The ratio of successful shots is one in God-knows-how-many. Sometimes you'll get several in one contact sheet, and sometimes it's none for days. But as long as you go on taking pictures, you're likely to get a good one at some point.

• Good
• God
• Long

My life has been quite interesting professionally.

• Life
• Interesting

Covering a historic event is perfectly legitimate. It's not sneaking into somebody's boudoir... These people belong to history, and not to record that if you have the opportunity would be wrong.

• People
• History
• Opportunity

In those simpler days, you could just take pictures of movie stars and show them the way they were, as normal human beings. And if I felt part of any movement at the time, it was just to do that - to be journalistic and photograph what is, rather than what is made up.

• Up
• Time
• Movie

A visual sense is something you either have or you don't.

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

I'll always be an amateur photographer.

I'm not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious.

• Serious

All of my marriages lasted seven years.

Most photographers work best alone, myself included.

• Work
• Alone

Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.

I don't really have a favorite camera. I use a Leica and Canon a lot. It depends, especially professionally, on the requirements. But my carry-around camera is a Leica.

I've been around so long, most editors think I'm dead.

• Long

I enjoy nothing more than spending time with my loved ones, young and old, and at least once a year we get together for a formal family photograph.

• Time
• Family
• Together

My 'work' is about seeing not about ideas.

• Work