John Szarkowski Quotes

20 quotes in 279 categories

• Photography is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere ...
• To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer's craft.
• Photography is the easiest thing in the world if one is willing to accept pictures that are flaccid, limp, bland, banal, indiscriminately informative, and pointless.…
• A camera has interesting ideas of its own.
• The basic material of photographs is not intrinsically beautiful. It's not like ivory or tapestry or bronze or oil on canvas. You're not supposed to…
• Luck is the attentive photographer's best teacher.
• In practice a photographer does not concern himself with philosophical issues while working; he makes photographs, working with subject matter that he thinks will make…
• 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,…
• They were ... pure and unadulterated photographs, and sometimes they hinted at the existence of visual truths that had escaped all other systems of detection.
• The central act of photography, the act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge - the line that separates in from…
• Trained as a musician, [photographer Ansel] Adams understood the richness of variation that could be unfolded from a simple theme.
• A photographer's best work is, alas, generally done for himself.
• The simplicity of photography lies in the fact that it is very easy to make a picture. The staggering complexity of it lies in the…
• Like an organism, photography was born whole. It is in our progressive discovery of it that its history lies.
• A skillful photographer can photograph anything well.
• The world now contains more photographs than bricks, and they are, astonishingly, all different.
• One of the leading uses of photography by the mass media came to be called photojournalism. From the late 'twenties' to the early 'fifties' what…
• The photographer’s vision convinces us to the degree that the photographer hides his hand.
• The very best pictures adapt themselves to many changes in meaning.
• The goal is not to make something factually impeccable, but seamlessly persuasive.

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