Edward Weston Quotes

57 quotes in 967 categories

• Now, to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravity before going for a walk.
• The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
• My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, or the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
• If I have any 'message' worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography.
• Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn't photogenic.
• I start with no preconceived idea - discovery excites me to focus - then rediscovery through the lens - final form of presentation seen on…
• My true program is summed up in one word: life. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me.
• Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that…
• I see no reason for recording the obvious.
• The... arguments against photography ever being considered a fine art are: the element of chance which enters in, finding things ready-made for a machine to…
• Since the recording process is instantaneous, and the nature of the image such that it cannot survive corrective handwork, it is obvious that the finished…
• To compose a subject well means no more than to see and present it in the strongest manner possible.
• Ultimately success or failure in photographing people depends on the photographer's ability to understand his fellow man.
• When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to…
• The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished…
• "Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach…
• The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel…
• I was extravagant in the matter of cameras - anything photographic - I had to have the best. But that was to further my work.…
• I want the stark beauty that a lens can so exactly render presented without interference of artistic effect.
• The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer's understanding…

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