My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it. — Sam Abell Ability Copy Share Image
There isn't an aspect of book creation I don't enjoy, and there has always been a book in my life to dream… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
I had luck, but I worked hard and I suffered. It's not just photography I'm talking about. It's about whatever dream you… — Sam Abell Dream Copy Share Image
Teaching has never been far from my life. It's the most natural thing I do. Apparently, as I said, I cannot not… — Sam Abell Education Copy Share Image
There are things that I teach, about building photographs, and that's why people come to my workshops. When people come to the… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
I'm interested in smokers standing on ledges, and big box stores, the rise of the suburbs, and the hollowing out of small… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
For sheer majestic geography and sublime scale, nothing beats Alaska and the Yukon. For culture, Japan. And for all-around affection, Australia. — Sam Abell Affection Copy Share Image
I will just say, appropriation is an intellectual idea until it happens to you. It's a philosophy, and it's got its own… — Sam Abell Appropriation Copy Share Image
This might seem off the track, but an interesting thing to me that others could talk about better than I, but one… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
When I first went to 'National Geographic,' I thought I was the least qualified person to step through the doors. But because… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
Though Geographic didn't publish that photo in the story that it was done for, "The Life of Charlie Russell," a cowboy artist… — Sam Abell Art Copy Share Image
And that desire-the strong desire to take pictures-is important. It borders on a need, based on a habit: the habit of seeing.… — Sam Abell Borders Copy Share Image
I have this awareness that the more dynamic the situation is, the more on guard I need to be that the dynamic… — Sam Abell Animal Copy Share Image
My first priority when taking pictures is to achieve clarity. A good documentary photograph transmits the information of the situation with the… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
'Woman on the Plaza,' with its distinct horizon, snow-like surfaces, wintry wall, stunning sunlight, sharp shadows, and hurrying figure, would become the… — Sam Abell Abstract Copy Share Image
I did a story for the Geographic on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and Stephen Ambrose was the writer. He said, "I've… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
I started teaching in '76 and I'd been a photographer at the Geographic for six years. But prior to being at the… — Sam Abell Brother Copy Share Image
The reason I don't want to say anything about it is it has a strange power to take over the conversation. Just… — Sam Abell Communication Copy Share Image
In the last workshop I taught, a woman flew in from Thailand. She's a medical doctor in Bangkok. I asked her in… — Sam Abell Art Copy Share Image
My connection to Santa Fe is very closely, and continuously a connection with Reid. I believe in him and his philosophy of… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
For example, in my dorm, at the University of Kentucky, I had the only camera. I don't think anyone came to college… — Sam Abell Camera Copy Share Image
...just like some people's instinct to photograph is triggered by vacation... assignments might be that to me and that's why I've built… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
That statement [ Stephen Ambrose:'You, Sam, have the hardest job, which is, pretend like nothing has happened in the last 200 years.']… — Sam Abell Facts Copy Share Image
Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest - a distant horizon, a… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
[In the late 80's] that's the first time I heard about that astonishing idea [that most photographs would be taken on telephones].… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
The neatest part of this book I'm working on - to me - are the pictures that show the process... Because photographers...… — Sam Abell Book Copy Share Image
Yes, there are billions more photographers, and billions more photographs every day, but who's building up a point of view? Who's photographing… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
Typically I see it with photographers who go to a place like India or Nepal, and everything's so colorful and exotic and… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
It actually has transcended my career at the Geographic, so that when my career there ended, I had momentum as a teacher,… — Sam Abell Belief Copy Share Image
The class that I teach is called "The Life of a Photograph." It takes up the question, of the billion photographs that… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
I was giving a lecture and I said, that's enough about The Photographic Life, meaning my biography, now let's talk about the… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture… — Sam Abell Camera Copy Share Image
In almost every photograph I have ever made, there is something I would do to complete it. I take that to be… — Sam Abell Deliberate Copy Share Image
I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I've… — Sam Abell Book Copy Share Image
The thing with my workshops is, photography is a thoughtful process. In an atmosphere of fast photography, and generally thoughtless, quick, automatic… — Sam Abell Approach Copy Share Image
I was a consultant for Kodak back in the late 80's. There were engineers there who told me that in the future,… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
My father taught me photography. It was his hobby, and we had a small darkroom in the fruit cellar of our basement.… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
I can't speak for other photographers, but the photographers who went forward strongly when the so-called "official" part of their career ended,… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
There are a lot of ways to be expressive in life, but I wasn't good at some of them. Music, for instance.… — Sam Abell Copy Share Image
![“That statement [ Stephen Ambrose:'You, Sam, have the hardest job, which is, pretend like nothing has happened in the last 200 years.'] woke me up to the fact that the landscape that Lewis and Clark came across was greater than the Serengeti. And it's gone.” quote by Sam Abell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b88/sam-abell-7768_facts_that-statement-stephen-ambrose-you-sam-h_236207.jpg)
![“[In the late 80's] that's the first time I heard about that astonishing idea [that most photographs would be taken on telephones]. And now I've been watching the tsunami of images.” quote by Sam Abell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/aa1/sam-abell-7768_astonishing_in-the-late-80-s-that-s-the-first-time-i_650129.png)
