12 Quotes that Keep Me Focused on My Work

Quotes are an interesting phenomenon. They are made special because of who said them, and the context of what surrounds them culturally and socially.

I love quotes about photography and art because they help me understand larger pictures by looking at a macro statement.

Much like the vision statement I think is so important, quotes can be guiding lights when the creative world around me gets a little, ummm… murky.

And it does. On occasion.

Get murky.

It will always be a challenge to be creative, but it can be made a bit more palatable knowing that others have trudged on in similar situations and made good.

“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

I remember this when I am faced with a subject that is not revealing itself to me. I may be temporarily unable to see the image that I know is there, but I can close my mind off from the noise and just look at what I am trying to see and that works. Most of the time.

” I am always mentally photographing everything as practice.”
– Minor White

This one hits home. I do the same thing. I mentally photograph the things around me wondering what lens I would use and trying to visualize the final photograph. It is good training for us all.

“Every photograph has an equivalent idea or emotion attached to it”
– Alfred Stieglitz

Photographs reveal metaphorical visual representations to me. I like to see representations of both emotion and intellectual ideas find themselves into my compositions. A road through the desert becomes a metaphorical trail of discovery while a solitary cloud can be an ironic notation.

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

My students know this one well. I think the best photographs are the ones we make deliberately, with absolute precision in the making of. This doesn’t preclude ‘street photography’ or photojournalism, it points out how sublimely these photographers work to make the images they do.

“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen”
– Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

We live in a visual age… and it is punctuated heavily by the written word. It is not only imperative that a creator know how to do both, it is imperative that they do both.

“The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.”
– Robert Mapplethorpe

One of the most incredibly joyous things I do is to look at other photographer’s photographs. It lets me see into their world, and the things they find interesting. What insight that can bring.

“There will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’ while other of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
– Man Ray

Me too, Man. Me too.

“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”
– Diane Arbus

Photographs reveal less than they claim. Sometimes what is left out of the image is as important – maybe sometimes more important – than what is left in. It is one of the things that makes viewing photographs such a personal experience.

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

There is such energy at work when I have a camera in my hands. I have never been able to explain it. I rarely try to. It is all-encompassing and I can only say that occasionally it seems more like meditation than making pictures. It is a feeling I end up craving when I am not able to do it.

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
– Dorothea Lange

I am not that interested in movies and video. Lately, I have been a bit inspired to make videos, but they are not cinematic in nature. For me, the still image is such a total fascination that I do not need to see it move. In fact, if it does, I seem to lose interest quickly.

“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.”
― Edward Weston

I am not one for rules. I do not follow the ‘rule of thirds’ nor do I look for fibonacci spirals and such when looking through my lenses. I want to tell a story, create an image that speaks its own truth and rarely does that come from following rules.

“I photograph to find out what something would look like photographed”
– Gary Winigrand

This is my most beloved quote because it is so close to my own motivations. I love to find out what stuff looks like as a photograph. A moment in time and space caught by my camera and held in perpetuity (or until the hard drives crash… heh) letting the memories that surround it, and the story it tells become as real as the moment itself was.

So that is my dozen inspirational quotes I recall on nearly every journey out with a camera.

They keep me grounded.

They inspire me.

They make me realize what a gift it is to make a photograph, and how grateful I am for the opportunity to do so.

To all of you, thanks for being a part of my life.

See you next time.