Ansel Adams
There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.Collection: Art
Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.Collection: Space
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.Collection: Brainy
Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.Collection: Truth
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.Collection: Environmental
Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.Collection: God
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.Collection: Chance
A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.Collection: Great
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.Collection: Art
A good photograph is knowing where to stand.Collection: Good
The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance.Collection: Art
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Experience
You don't take a photograph, you make it.Collection: Art
There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.
Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.
A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.
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.
The only things in my life that compatibly exists with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.
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.
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.
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.
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
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.
I tried to keep both arts alive, but the camera won. I found that while the camera does not express the soul, perhaps a photograph can!
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.
It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.
Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.
I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful - an endless prospect of magic and wonder.Collection: Beautiful
Photograph not only what you see but also what you feel.Collection: Photograph
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.Collection: Music
Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children...let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money...and once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.Collection: Children
We make images to "honor what is greater and more interesting than we are."Collection: Photography
Bad weather makes for good photography.Collection: Photography
Image quality is not the product of a machine, but of the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression.Collection: Photography
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.Collection: Art
The negative is the score, and the print the performance.Collection: Photography
I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate.Collection: Believe
Once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any priceCollection: Nature
The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!Collection: Photography
Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.Collection: Photography
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 wonder surrounding him.Collection: Discovery
All I can do in my writing is to stimulate a certain amount of thought, clarify some technical facts and date my work. But when I preach sharpness, brilliancy, scale, etc., I am just mouthing words, because no words can really describe those terms and qualities it takes the actual print to say, “here it is.Collection: Writing
Now there is a big turnover in the galleries. The top galleries are getting better all the time. A lot of galleries just struggle along, then a new one comes along. There are certainly a great number of galleries. I think this argues well for the art but there are, of course, a lot of "phonies" in all the arts.Collection: Art
It is just as important to bring people the evidence of the beauty of the world of nature and of man as it is to give them a document of ugliness, squalor, and despair.Collection: Photography