Ansel Adams Quotes

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.

Notebook. No photographer should be without one!

Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

You don't take a photograph, you make it.

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.

Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.

No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.

When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.

There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit.

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.

These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.

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.

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.

A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.

Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?

There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.

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.

I am probably afraid that some spectator will not understand my photography - therefore I proceed to make it really less understandable by writing defensibly about it.

Some photographers take reality...and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term -- meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching -- there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and the wonder surrounding him.