37 Inspiring Ansel Adams Quotes On Success in Photography

1. “Today, we must realize that nature is revealed in the simplest meadow, wood lot, marsh, stream, or tidepool, as well as in the remote grandeur of our parks and wilderness areas.” ― Ansel Adams

2. “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” ― Ansel Adams

3. “We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium.” ― Ansel Adams

4. “Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum.” ― Ansel Adams

5. “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” ― Ansel Adams

6. “A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.” ― Ansel Adams

7. “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” ― Ansel Adams

8. “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” ― Ansel Adams

9. “I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.” ― Ansel Adams

10. “In my mind’s eye, I visualize how a particular… sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.” ― Ansel Adams

11. “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” ― Ansel Adams

12. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” ― Ansel Adams

13. “Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.” ― Ansel Adams

14. “Photograph not only what you see but also what you feel.” ― Ansel Adams

15. “A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.” ― Ansel Adams

16. “A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looking into.” ― Ansel Adams

17. “I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful – an endless prospect of magic and wonder.” ― Ansel Adams

18. “The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!”

19. “The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” ― Ansel Adams

20. “To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.” ― Ansel Adams

21. “Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.” ― Ansel Adams

22. “Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.” ― Ansel Adams

23. “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.” ― Ansel Adams

24. “I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful – an endless prospect of magic and wonder.” ― Ansel Adams

25. “With all art expression, when something is seen, it is a vivid experience, sudden, compelling, and inevitable.” ― Ansel Adams

26. “No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.” ― Ansel Adams

27. “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” ― Ansel Adams

28. “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.” ― Ansel Adams

29. “Our lives at times seem a study in contrast… love & hate, birth & death, right & wrong… everything seen in absolutes of black & white. Too often we are not aware that it is the shades of grey that add depth & meaning to the starkness of those extremes.” ― Ansel Adams

30. “Bad weather makes for good photography.” ― Ansel Adams

31. “Ask yourself: Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream?” – Ansel Adams

32. “The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” ― Ansel Adams

33. “I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate.” ― Ansel Adams

34. “In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.” ― Ansel Adams

35. “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” ― Ansel Adams

36. “A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.” ― Ansel Adams

37. “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” ― Ansel Adams

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