Photographer Quotes

Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur.

Never boss people around. It's more important to click with people than to click the shutter.

When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.

I don't like to work with assistants. I'm already one too many; the camera alone would be enough.

I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I shall really have become a photographer.

During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.

Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.

Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.

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.

We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory.

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.

Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick.

To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.

To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.

This war is like an actress who is getting old. It is less and less photogenic and more and more dangerous.

The war correspondent has his stake - his life - in his own hands, and he can put it on this horse or that horse, or he can put it back in his pocket at the very last minute.

In a war, you must hate somebody or love somebody; you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on.

I would say that the war correspondent gets more drinks, more girls, better pay, and greater freedom than the soldier, but at this stage of the game, having the freedom to choose his spot and being allowed to be a coward and not be executed for it is his torture.

The pictures are there, and you just take them.

I hope to stay unemployed as a war photographer till the end of my life.

I am a gambler. I decided to go in with Company E in the first wave.

For a war correspondent to miss an invasion is like refusing a date with Lana Turner.

The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda.

It's not always easy to stand aside and be unable to do anything except record the sufferings around one.