Ansel Adams Quotes

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

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.

A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looked into.

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.

The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.

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

Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.

There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.

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.

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

The whole world is, to me, very much ‘alive’ – all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can’t look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life – the things going on – within them.

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.

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.

A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.

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

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

When I’m ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my mind’s 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.

Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.

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

Every artist has to make a little flower grow in their soul before they can photograph it.

The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.

I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.

You don’t have to imagine. That’s the beauty of photography – it’s already there for you.

Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

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.

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.

I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful – an endless prospect of magic and wonder.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance.

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

The only things that the United States has given to the world are skyscrapers, jazz and Ansel Adams.

It is my intention to present – through the medium of photography – intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to spectators.

Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.

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

Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world.

I know that many photographers, especially amateurs, rely on luck for their photographs – and luck indeed does play a part. But luck rarely visits those who have not put in the time and work.

I hope that my work will encourage self-expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.

To the complaint, ‘There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.

There are no shortcuts in landscape photography. No way to trick the viewer with a quick click of the shutter. It’s a game of patience, perseverance, and preparation.

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.