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27 Wise, inspirational and motivating photography quotes

We all love an inspirational quote from time to time and over the years some of the best have been centered around the subject closest to our hearts, photography.

I’ve rounded up some of the best photography quotes here (some old, some new) and each of them manage to conjure up feelings of inspiration or motivation in their own way. Enjoy.

– “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.”Joan Miro

– “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 to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it my be.”Edward Weston

–听鈥淭he eye should learn to listen before it looks.鈥 Robert Frank

–听鈥淚 tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I鈥檝e never been.鈥澨Diane Arbus

–听鈥淵our first 10,000 photographs are your worst.鈥 Henri Cartier-Bresson

–听鈥淭here are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.鈥 Ansel Adams

–听鈥淚t鈥檚 weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don鈥檛 even amount to a couple of hours.鈥James Lalropui Keivom

–听鈥淢y life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.鈥Steve McCurry

“Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.” 听Henri Cartier-Bresson

Paris, FRANCE; File Photo. Date Unknown Legendary French photographer HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON, who traveled the wo
Henri Cariter-Bresson, date unknown 漏 Keystone Pictures USA / 17吃瓜在线 Stock Photo

–听鈥淵ou don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.鈥澨Ansel Adams

–听鈥淎 photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.鈥 Brigitte Bardot

–听鈥淭o the complaint, ‘There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.鈥 听Ansel Adams

–听鈥淲hen 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.鈥澨Robert Frank

–听鈥淭he painter constructs, the photographer discloses.鈥澨Susan Sontag

“The two most engaging powers of a photograph are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.”听William Thackeray

–听鈥淭o know ahead of time what you鈥檙e looking for means you鈥檙e then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.鈥澨Dorothea Lange

“Kodak sells film, but they don’t advertise film; they advertise memories.”听Theodore Levitt

“Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.”Garry Winogrand

–听鈥淎 portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.鈥澨Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen at his house in Connecticut. 26th Dec, 1962. 漏 Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/17吃瓜在线 Live News
Edward Steichen at his home in 1962 漏 ZUMA Press, Inc. / 17吃瓜在线 Stock Photo

–听鈥淚t鈥檚 one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it鈥檚 another thing to make a portrait of who they are.鈥澨Paul Caponigro

“Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.”听Sally Mann

–听鈥淚f you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.鈥澨Jim Richardson

“What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time.”John Berger

“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.”David Bailey

–听鈥淚 think that emotional content is an image鈥檚 most important element, regardless of the photographic technique. Much of the work I see these days lacks the emotional impact to draw a reaction from viewers, or remain in their hearts.鈥澨Anne Geddes

–听鈥淧hotography for me is not looking, it鈥檚 feeling. If you can鈥檛 feel what you鈥檙e looking at, then you鈥檙e never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.鈥澨Don McCullin

What’s your favourite photography quote?听Is there anything you want to add? Let us know in the comments below.

James Allsworth

A photographer, digital media degree holder and part of the 17吃瓜在线 Content team for 18 years. James has a strong interest in all things visual and is our Head of Content.

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