Alvin Langdon Coburn Quotes

United States, Photographer
June 11, 1882 – November, 23, 1966.

Alvin Langdon Coburn was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of elevated viewpoints and later made some of the first completely abstract photographs.

A photographic portrait needs more collaboration between sitter and artist than a painted portrait.

Alvin Langdon Coburn
My aim in photography is always to convey a mood and not to impart local information. This is not an easy matter, for the camera if left to its own devices will simply impart local information to the exclusiveness of everything else.

Alvin Langdon Coburn

Why should not the camera artist break away from the worn out conventions... and claim the freedom of expression which any art must have to be alive

Alvin Langdon Coburn
Photography makes one conscious of beauty everywhere, even in the simplest things, even in what is often considered commonplace or ugly. Yet nothing is really 'ordinary', for every fragment of the world is crowned with wonder and mystery, and a great and surprising beauty.

Alvin Langdon Coburn
- World
- Beauty
- Photography
I wish to state emphatically that I do not believe in any sort of handwork or manipulation on a photographic negative or print.

Alvin Langdon Coburn