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50+ Best Photographer Quotes of All Time (2022 Update)
There are few things more inspiring than reading photographer quotes. A photographer is someone who captures moments and preserve memories. As such, their words can be extremely powerful and inspiring.
The best photographers have a way of seeing the world that is unique and often times, their words can help us to see things in a new light.
Photography is a way to document life’s most precious moments, and these quotes do just that. These photographer quotes are from some of the greatest artists, photographers and writers who have ever lived.
Here’s our list of 50+ iconic and famous photography quotes that will definitely inspire you:
“When people ask me what equipment I use – I tell them my eyes.”
– Anonymous
Any good photographer knows that having the right gear, is the easy part. Although there are a lot of technical aspects to getting the perfect shot – lighting, exposure, framing, shutter speed and more – the hardest thing is being able to visualize a good image – and that’s not something that’s easily taught. One can only learn that from experience.
“A photographer is someone who witnesses history. If you don’t understand the role of a photographer, you don’t understand the role of history.”
– Eddie Adams
“The photographer’s involvement with the subject is the most important thing.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.”
– Alfred Stieglitz
“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanish no one can call them back again.”
– Henry Carruthers
“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
– Aaron Siskind
“I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.”
– Diane Arbus
“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange
“There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.”
– Ernst Haas
“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.”
– Elliott Erwitt
First impressions aren’t always the best impressions and they may not even be accurate. But, in that first instance and moment, the feeling one experiences seems to be more real than anything that comes after. That’s the beauty of the emotions a great photograph can evoke.
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
– Unknown
“Photography is all about capturing light. It’s about getting the right exposure, and creating something beautiful.”
– Chase Jarvis
“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
– Robert Frank
“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
“It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.”
– Paul Caponigro
“A photograph is not an end in itself, but a means of communication.”
– Minor White
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
– Dorothea Lange
This Depression-era photo from the 1930s by Dorothea Lange, is one of the most iconic photographs in American history.
It serves as a symbol of the many hardships suffered by migrant families and instantly conveys their plight. This famous quote conveys that the camera enables us to capture the situations around us into individual moments – which are mostly a fraction of a second, and view a slice of the world in a way we’ve never seen before.
“Photography is a language more universal than words.”
– Teresada Costa Gomez
“If you want to be a photographer, stand in front of something beautiful and wait ’till it photographs you.”
– Unknown
“Remember that behind every great photograph is a story.”
– Unknown
“Photography helps people to see.”
– Berenice Abbott
“Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.”
– Diane Arbus
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”
– Robert Frank
“Photography is the story I fail to put into words.”
– Destin Sparks
“The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.”
– Andy Warhol
This quote is an excellent reminder that even though a photograph is permanent, its reality might not be. A lot can change once a photo is taken, but the image serves as a constant reminder of what was, no matter what is to come now.
“Photography, like all art, is about communicating from one human being to another.”
– Annie Leibovitz
“There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.”
– Robert Frank
“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.”
– Irving Penn
“Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”
– Anon
“Photography is a language more universal than words. It crosses all barriers of nationality, culture, race, and religion.”
– Galen Rowell
“It’s not about equipment, it’s about imagination.”
– Albert Watson
“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”
-Diane Arbus
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”
– Robert Capa
“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”
– Robert Frank
Ever read a line of poetry that you simply had to read again? What about a photography quote you’ve read here so far? Did it take some time to sink in?
A good photograph can have the exact same effect. If you’ve ever spent a few seconds to a few minutes absorbing a certain photo, the photographer has accomplished what they set out to do.
“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”
– Ansel Adams
“A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order to guarantee that one will survive.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“Photography is a language more universal than words.”
– Robert Frank
“The photographer sees more than others see and sees more quickly.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
“It’s all about light and composition.”
– Ansel Adams
“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.”
– George Walter Evans
“Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”
– Anonymous
“The photographer is an acrobat treading on the tightrope of chance.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
“It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.”
– Alfred Eisenstaedt
“Photography is a love affair with life.”
– Burk Uzzle
“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
– Ansel Adams
There’s SO much more to photography than pointing your camera and clicking the picture. The process starts with a vision that you want to capture into a photo.
An expert photographer knows the thought, planning, visualizing, exposing, rendering and editing that goes into a single photograph. That’s the difference between a professional shot and an amateur one.
“I walk, I look, I see, I stop, I photograph.”
– Leon Levinstein
“Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. You either put something in or leave it out.”
– Garry Winogrand
“The photographer does not create. He discovers.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photographer quotes help us to understand the true meaning and power of photography. They remind us that photography is not just about taking pictures, but about capturing moments and emotions that can last forever.
Photographer quotes also inspire us to be better photographers, to see the world differently, and to tell our own stories through our images.
We hope you enjoyed this post! Let us know your favourite photography quotes in the comments below.