Sam Abell Quotes

34 quotes in 656 categories

• As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The…
• A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes.
• Essentially what photography is is life lit up.
• It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.
• My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.
• My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate…
• There are grander and more sublime landscapes - to me. There are more compelling cultures. But what appeals to me about central Montana is that…
• Editorial photography has to be energetic and visually competitive.
• For sheer majestic geography and sublime scale, nothing beats Alaska and the Yukon. For culture, Japan. And for all-around affection, Australia.
• I wanted life to be episodic. I wanted to be a magazine photographer and I was willing to do what it took to become that.
• I was known as a 35-mm photographer with a view-camera mentality.
• I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I've always thought the…
• My father taught me photography. It was his hobby, and we had a small darkroom in the fruit cellar of our basement. It was the…
• 'Woman on the Plaza,' with its distinct horizon, snow-like surfaces, wintry wall, stunning sunlight, sharp shadows, and hurrying figure, would become the most biographical of…
• Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.
• Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me.
• For spiritual companions I have had the many artists who have relied on nature to help shape their imagination. And their most elaborate equipment was…
• Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph. It is the edgy existence…
• My first priority when taking pictures is to achieve clarity. A good documentary photograph transmits the information of the situation with the utmost fidelity; achieving…
• And that desire-the strong desire to take pictures-is important. It borders on a need, based on a habit: the habit of seeing. Whether working or…

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