What would we do without inspiration?
We’d be lost without a guide. We need this impulse, which leads us to believe, dream, and finally, put our ideas into practice.
Creativity is our most powerful resource, but to be creative and to be able to communicate what we want through our images, we also need to feel inspired. Knowing the thoughts of other photographers, such as Steve McCurry, Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, August Sander, Elliot Erwitt, etc., helps us in this process.
Let yourself be inspired by artists who have made photography their way of living. Travel with your thoughts through this list of the best 50 Photography Quotes!
I’m always chasing the light. Light makes the ordinary magical. – Trent Parke
The purpose of taking pictures is that I don’t have to explain things in words. – Elliott Erwitt
The most important part of a camera stands behind it. – Ansel Adams
There is one thing that photography must have, the humanity of the moment. – Robert Frank
To photograph is to place the head, the eye and the heart on the same plane. – Henri Cartier-Bresson
If your pictures aren’t good enough, it’s because you’re not close enough. – Robert Capa
Photography can’t change reality but it can show it. – Don McCullin
The most important thing is not the camera, but the eye. – Alfred Eisenstaedt
In photography, there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated. – August Sander
Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold. – W. Eugene Smith
Skill in photography is acquired with practice, not by buying. – Peter Lindbergh
The important thing is to see what is invisible to others. – Steve McCurry
I’m looking for the unexpected. I’m looking for things I’ve never seen before. – Robert Mapplethorpe
A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people. – Annie Leibovitz
I’m a documentary photographer. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be; that’s where my heart and soul is. – Mary Ellen Mark
Photography is a major force in explaining man to man. – Edward Steichen
When you photograph a face, you photograph the soul behind it. – Jean-Luc Godard
Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies. – Diane Arbus
Photography is the story I fail to put into words. – Destin Sparks
To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. – Elliott Erwitt
The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do. – Andy Warhol
In my view, you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it. – Émile Zola
Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. – Paul Strand
If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it’s already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer. – Eve Arnold
Regarding the creative: never assume you’re the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you’re masterful. – Don Roff
Some days, you just get lucky… Other days you wait patiently for luck to happen. – Destin Sparks
What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time. – John Berger
I think good dreaming is what leads to good photographs. – Wayne Miller
My pictures are about making people realize we’ve got to protect those who can’t speak for themselves. – Michael “Nick” Nichols
Your first 10000 photographs are your worst. – Henri Cartier Bresson
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. – Dorothea Lange
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 records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man. – Edward Steichen
I find it satisfying that what I’ve done in photography has had so much influence in how people take photographs and what they look at and how they look at things. – William Klein
Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. – George Eastman
The camera has always been a guide, and it’s allowed me to see things and focus on things that may be an average person wouldn’t even notice. – Don Chadwick
Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work. – Martin Parr
Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, cinema. – David Lynch
Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world. – Arnold Newman
The desire to discover, the desire to move, to capture the flavor, three concepts that describe the art of photography. – Helmut Newton
I love the people I photograph. I mean, they’re my friends. I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all, yet through my images I live with them. – Bruce Gilden
The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer. – Steven Pinker
My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. – Steve McCurry
When people ask me what equipment I use – I tell them my eyes. – Anonymous
Only photography has been able to divide human life into a series of moments, each of them has the value of a complete existence. – Eadweard Muybridge
Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera. – Yousuf Karsh
Only photograph what you love. – Tim Walker
Did you find the inspiration you were looking for? I’m interested in your opinion, let me know in the comments below what photography means to you.
