Ansel Adams Quotes
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I tried to keep both arts alive, but the camera won. I found that while the camera does not express the soul, perhaps a photograph can!
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I respect everything in change and the solemn beauty of life and death... and therefore, while man is amidst the immense beauty of objective bodies, he must possess the capacity of self-perfection and must observe and represent his world with full confidence.
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You don't take a picture, you make a picture.
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Black and white photography is truly quite a 'departure from reality', and the transition from one aspect of visual magic to another was not as complete as many imagine.
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The best picture is around the corner. Like prosperity.
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The whole world is, to me, very much "alive" - all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can't look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life - the things going on - within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.
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One of the most important pieces of equipment, for the photographer who really wants to improve, is a great big wastepaper basket.
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Photograph not only what you see but also what you feel.
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As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes and seas and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.
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The next time you pick up a camera think of it not as an inflexible and automated robot, but as a flexible instrument which you must understand to properly use. An electronic and optical miracle creates nothing on its own! Whatever beauty and excitement it can represent exist in your mind and spirit to begin with.
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All art is the expression of one and the same thing- the relation of the spirit of man to the spirit of other men and to the world.
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We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium.
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I can't verbalize the internal meaning of pictures whatsoever. Some of my friends can at very mystical levels, but I prefer to say that, if I feel something strongly, I would make a photograph, that would be the equivalent of what I saw and felt.
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Art is both the taking and giving of beauty; the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the inter-relations of these.
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I know some photographs that are extraodrinary in their power and conviction, but it is difficult in photography to overcome the superficial power or subject; the concept and statement must be quite convincing in themselves to win over a dramatic and compelling subject situation.
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Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.
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A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.
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I think photography is being recognized and collected. Its values have certainly gone up and continue to go up.
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We make images to "honor what is greater and more interesting than we are."
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There are no forms in nature. Nature is a vast, chaotic collection of shapes. You as an artist create configurations out of chaos. You make a formal statement where there was none to begin with. All art is a combination of an external event and an internal event… I make a photograph to give you the equivalent of what I felt. Equivalent is still the best word.
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Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
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Photography and photographers have an inevitable development. They progress more or less by steps. Every five or ten years some new point of view is developed and young people are inclined to follow it.
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The 35mm camera is for life and for people, the swift and intense moments of life.
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All I can do in my writing is to stimulate a certain amount of thought, clarify some technical facts and date my work. But when I preach sharpness, brilliancy, scale, etc., I am just mouthing words, because no words can really describe those terms and qualities it takes the actual print to say, “here it is.