Photography Quotes

It has been a very hectic week here, and the week flew by, again! Below are some of my favorite photography quotes that I lean on for inspiration. I hope you enjoy them as well!

“Art is seldom the result of true genius; rather, it is the product of hard work and skills learned and tenaciously practiced by regular people.” –Sally Mann

“The picture is like a prayer, an offering, and hopefully an opening through which to seek what we don’t know, or already know and should take seriously.” –Emmet Gowin

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.” –Henri Cartier-Bresson

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.” –Richard Avedon

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.  What you have caught on film is captured forever…it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” –Aaron Siskind

“Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.” –Paul Strand

“It’s not when you press the shutter, but why you press the shutter.” –Mary Ellen Mark

“Photographing a cake can be art.” –Irving Penn

“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.” –Alfred Stieglitz

“Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it may be.”  –Edward Weston

“To me, photography is a major force in explaining man to man.” –Edward Steichen

“Look and think before opening the shutter.  The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.” –Yousuf Karsh

“It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.” –Man Ray

“Which of my photographs is my favorite?  The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” –Imogen Cunningham

“Everything is a subject.  Every subject has a rhythm.  To feel it is the raison detre.  The photograph is a fixed moment of such a raison detre, which lives on in itself.” –Andre Kertesz

“Stare.  It is the way to educate your eye, and more.  Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.  Die knowing something. You are not here long.”  –Walker Evans

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

“I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” –Diane Arbus

Make Your Own Path

I love these word by Lisa Congdon about making your own path in life, and maybe these words will resonate with you as well!

In the world today, we have so much more direct information about other people’s lives than we’ve ever ever had before. Social media keeps us abreast of everyone’s activities and accomplishments. As a result, we may sometimes feel like our lives aren’t as interesting as other people’s or that our work isn’t as impactful or our bodies aren’t as attractive. What we see on social media can make us feel horrible about ourselves! So, it’s important to use social media judiciously and to stay focused on the health and progress of your own journey without comparison. Create and nurture your own path.

Creativity

“Creativity is for everyone — it’s an innate human trait to build things and to express ourselves through the things we make.” —Suleika Jaouad

I loved Jaouad’s memoir Between Two Kingdoms. It was a wonderful read, and I highly recommend it. I love her ideas on creativity, balance, and rest. Below are a few excerpts from Jaouad on creativity from an interview on creativity, that I enjoyed, and you might too.

Doing things I’ve never done before, sparks joy. Over the last year, I’ve tried my hand at everything from painting watercolors to flower arranging, and I’m always looking for new forms of creative expression to twist my practice out of its usual ruts. Most recently it was a creative conversation with my husband, Jon Batiste. We sat down on the floor of his studio with a couple of microphones and some powerful community-sourced questions about life and creativity. We’d never really worked together in a professional capacity, and it was really fun to make something together, to learn how to edit audio and then to send it off into the world.

I am drawn and love journaling because it doesn’t require any training or expertise, and the barrier to entry is so low. You just need a notebook and a pen. Also, it can take any shape—stories, lists, poems or some kind of hybrid between writing and doodling. If you’re feeling uninspired, prompts can be useful too — The Isolation Journals has an archive of over 200 free creative prompts to get you started.

In the past, I wrapped up a lot of my self-worth in my productivity, which made it a struggle to balance rest and work. When I was diagnosed with cancer at 22, I wrote my column from my hospital room. While it was an amazing opportunity, I often pushed my body to the point of making myself sicker. I realized I had to build a career accommodating my limitations and lingering health challenges. So I chose the freelance route, which gave me as much flexibility as I needed.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the conflation of doing your best with doing the best. I think it’s a product of how hyper-productive and hyper-competitive American culture is — but whatever the case, I’ve been trying to disentangle the two. And I think that doing my best is trying my hardest, but not at the cost of my own well-being or the well-being of others around me. 

In terms of self-forgiveness and when doing your best falls short, I have a type-A personality and a turbo-charged, hyper-productive mentality, so I rarely feel like I’m doing enough. Something I’ve been trying out lately is keeping an accomplishment log of everything I did that day. Not only the work tasks but also the tendernesses — those good things I’ve done for myself and the people I care about. I count the work call and the nap equally. When I make that list, not only do I feel that I’ve done enough, I feel proud of my body and proud of myself.

I’m a big believer in contagion magic, which is the idea that objects are imbued with the people and places they’ve come in contact with. The objects I fall in love with and fill my home with typically hold some kind of special meaning to me. I’m an avid flea market and thrift store hunter of beautiful, unlikely finds, especially those that make you double-take, like a trompe l’oeil. 

We will all have life interruptions, be it illness or heartbreak or some other unexpected plot twist that brings you to the floor. Often we think we need to get through these times as quickly as possible. But the in-between moments, even though they’re difficult, are sacred and transformational. They’re rites of passage and should be honored, not rushed. Ultimately, I hope that my book Between Two Kingdoms feels like a companion through those valleys.

“[As] we get older, we tend to accept this strange idea that if we don’t do something professionally—if we’re not pursuing painting or writing or music seriously—that it’s not for us. I just don’t accept that. Humans are deeply creative beings.” —Suleika Jaouad

Read the full interview here.