Creativity comes from within. It really doesn’t matter about the lens or the camera. The only thing that really counts is vision.
Dress in Window – © John Neel
“Notebook. No photographer should be without one!”- Ansel Adams
“…the only things that distinguish the photographer from everybody else are his pictures: they alone are the basis for our special interest in him. If pictures cannot be understood without knowing details of the artist’s private life, then that is a reason for faulting them; major art, by definition, can stand independent of its maker.” – Robert Adams
“Like every other means of expression, photography, if it is to be utterly honest and direct, should be related to the life of the times – the pulse of today.” – Berenice Abbott
“Photography is a system of visual editing. At bottom, it is a matter of surrounding with a frame a portion of one’s cone of vision, while standing in the right place at the right time. Like chess, or writing, it is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite.” – John Szarkowski
“Searching is everything going beyond what you know. And the test of the search is really in the things themselves, the things you seek to understand. What is important is not what you think about them, but how they enlarge you.” – Wynn Bullock
“To chart a course, one must have a direction. In reality, the eye is no better than the philosophy behind it. The photographer creates, evolves a better, a more selective, more acute seeing eye by looking ever more sharply at what is going on in the world.” – Berenice Abbott
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange
Orb – © John Neel
“The best zoom lens is your legs.” – Ernst Haas
“Best wideangle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the ‘ahha’.” – Ernst Haas
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” – Ansel Adams
“People are under the illusion that it’s easy…Technically, it is complex. You have a million options with equipment to distract you. I tell my students to simplify their equipment.” – Brett Weston
“No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.”- Edward Steichen
“Image quality is not the product of a machine, but of the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression.” – Ansel Adams
“This is the same problem I have with digital photography. The potential is always remarkable. But the medium never settles. Each year there is a better camera to buy and new software to download. The user never has time to become comfortable with the tool. Consequently too much of the work is merely about the technology. The HDR and QTVR fads are good examples. Instead of focusing on the subject, users obsess over RAW conversion, Photoshop plugins, and on and on. For good work to develop the technology needs to become as stable and functional as a typewriter.” – Alec Soth
“Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important. ” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Read about my book Rethinking Digital Photography.
Please have a look at some of my other posts here.
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