Photography Quotes: Artistic Sayings of Famous Photographers

Welcome to a journey through the lens of inspiration with our collection of 101 photography quotes! Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, these quotes have something for everyone.

They come from some of the best photographers and thinkers. Each offers a unique view of capturing moments through photos. In this post, you’ll find quotes that inspire, teach, and even make you laugh.

We’ve sorted them into categories, so you can find the motivation or advice you’re after. Whether you want artistic tips, technical help, or a good laugh, you’re in the right spot.

So, grab your camera, and let’s dive into the world of photography as seen through the words of those who’ve mastered the craft!

Famous Photography Quotes

Here’s a compilation of 101 famous quotes from renowned photographers. This collection will give insights into photography. It covers the creative process and the technicalities of capturing a great image.

1. Landscape Photography

1. Ansel Adams: “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.”
2. Galen Rowell: “You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and only so many days on the planet.”
3. Peter Lik: “It’s not just about capturing what you see; it’s about capturing what you feel.”
4. Charlie Waite: “Landscape photography is the ultimate test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.”

2. Portrait Photography

5. Richard Avedon: “My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.”
6. Annie Leibovitz: “A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.”
7. Dorothea Lange: “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
8. Yousuf Karsh: “Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer, it is my task to reveal it if I can.”

3. Street Photography

9. Henri Cartier-Bresson: “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.”
10. Joel Meyerowitz: “What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.”
11. Vivian Maier: “The camera is a license to explore.”
12. Garry Winogrand: “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”

4. Documentary Photography

13. Sebastião Salgado: “If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture.”
14. James Nachtwey: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.”
15. Robert Capa: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”
16. Susan Meiselas: “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong.”

5. Fashion Photography

17. Irving Penn: “A fashion picture must be impeccable; its manners are part of its beauty.”
18. Mario Testino: “My pictures are my eyes. I photograph what I see – and what I want to see.”
19. Bill Cunningham: “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.”
20. Helmut Newton: “My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.”

6. Nature and Wildlife Photography

21. Frans Lanting: “I use photography to express the beauty of the natural world.”
22. Nick Brandt: “I wish to document species and landscapes that are still relatively undisturbed by man.”
23. Andy Rouse: “Wildlife photography is about choosing the moments that show the emotional part of animal behavior.”
24. Thomas D. Mangelsen: “Nature photography has the capacity to touch our hearts, to make us stop for a moment and look at the wonder.”

7. Architectural Photography

25. Julius Shulman: “Architecture affects everybody, and so to photograph architecture in a way that communicates what it’s like to be in these places – that’s important.”
26. Ezra Stoller: “Architectural photography is about understanding how spaces feel.”
27. Iwan Baan: “It’s not about capturing the building, it’s about capturing the life that happens in that building.”
28. Hélène Binet: “It’s about the absence of the camera in the presence of the object.”

8. Abstract Photography

29. Aaron Siskind: “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
30. Minor White: “One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.”
31. Man Ray: “I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.”
32. Wolfgang Tillmans: “For me, pictures are about memory and relationship.”

9. Sports Photography

33. Neil Leifer: “When people ask me what equipment I use – I tell them my eyes.”
34. Walter Iooss: “It’s not the sporting event itself, but the emotions of the people watching it that’s truly fascinating.”
35. Bob Martin: “The key to sports photography is not just capturing the peak action but the peak emotion.”
36. Simon Bruty: “In sports photography, the athlete is the protagonist, but the story is about the human spirit.”

10. Experimental and Conceptual Photography

37. Duane Michals: “I believe in imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.”
38. Cindy Sherman: “I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, visually pleasurable, but then you realize what you’re looking at isn’t all that pleasant.”
39. Barbara Kruger: “I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren’t.”
40. Andreas Gursky: “I stand at a distance, like a person who comes from another world.”

11. Macro Photography

41. Bryan Peterson: “Macro photography lets us look at familiar details in an unfamiliar way.”
42. Mike Moats: “The little things in life matter the most, but they’re often overlooked. That’s where macro photography comes in.”
43. Jack Dykinga: “It’s the small things in the world that provide the most incredible detail.”
44. Seth Casteel: “Macro photography can transform a small moment into a universe of its own.”

12. Underwater Photography

45. David Doubilet: “Water light, time, and chance blend to make a second of extraordinary beauty.”
46. Brian Skerry: “Underwater photography opens your eyes to the unseen. It’s like going to another planet.”
47. Ernst Haas: “I don’t take pictures; I take deep breaths.”
48. Zena Holloway: “The water doesn’t just display images; it creates a world of its own.”

13. Travel Photography

49. Steve McCurry: “Most of my photos are grounded in people; I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out.”
50. Paul Theroux: “You think of travel and you think of snapshots, but to me, it’s about catching a moment that is passing, and which is true.”
51. Michael Yamashita: “The best travel photography captures the uniqueness of a place and also its universality.”
52. Yann Arthus-Bertrand: “The Earth is art, the photographer is only a witness.”

14. Aerial Photography

53. George Steinmetz: “From above, the world looks too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see.”
54. Catherine Karnow: “Aerial photography changes our perceptions by showing us the scale of our world.”
55. Vincent Laforet: “When you go up high, you see things that are happening below that you did not understand before.”
56. Sebastião Salgado: “You fly over the earth and your perspective changes: you see things differently from up there.”

15. Astrophotography

57. Neil deGrasse Tyson: “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you, but your photographs of it can.”
58. Ansel Adams: “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”
59. Jerry Lodriguss: “Capturing the cosmos involves both the science of astronomy and the art of photography.”
60. Michael Benson: “What you shoot is not just the star or the planet; it’s the whole cosmos.”

16. Still Life Photography

61. Irving Penn: “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it.”
62. Laura Letinsky: “I am interested in exploring the way objects can serve as traces of desire and human presence.”
63. Edward Weston: “The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?”
64. Karl Blossfeldt: “Nature educates us into beauty and inwardness and is a source of the most noble pleasure.”

17. Photojournalism

65. Don McCullin: “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”
66. Margaret Bourke-White: “Photography is the beauty of life, captured.”
67. Eddie Adams: “If you don’t care about your subject, you can’t make good art.”
68. Gordon Parks: “The camera is not just a witness, but often becomes a voice for the voiceless.”

18. Wedding Photography

69. Joe Buissink: “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.”
70. Jerry Ghionis: “Wedding photography is the perfect balance of art and memory. It’s about capturing the timeless and the ephemeral.”
71. Susan Stripling: “The magic of wedding photography is found in the moments you never knew were happening.”
72. Elizabeth Messina: “Photography is about capturing souls, not smiles.”

19. Commercial Photography

73. Chase Jarvis: “The best camera is the one that’s with you, and the best product is one you can capture honestly and with authenticity.”
74. David LaChapelle: “In commercial photography, you have to make your client’s product the hero.”
75. Peter Lindbergh: “Sometimes a straightforward look is the most powerful way to tell a complex story.”
76. Annie Leibovitz: “Style is about being yourself on purpose.”

20. Experimental Techniques

77. Man Ray: “I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.”
78. Uta Barth: “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
79. Hiroshi Sugimoto: “In my photography, time is transformed into space.”
80. Daido Moriyama: “I shoot, I zoom, I blur; it’s the echo of my emotions.”

21. Cinematic Photography

81. Gregory Crewdson: “I’m interested in the moment of tension where both the real and the staged fuse together.”
82. Cindy Sherman: “I’m really just using the mirror to summon something I don’t even know until I see it.”
83. Sam Taylor-Johnson: “Photography is all about the story you’re telling, and every story is different.”
84. Philip-Lorca diCorcia: “I want the ordinary to look extraordinary.”

22. Environmental Photography

85. Sebastião Salgado: “We must preserve the planet so we can preserve the species.”
86. Joel Sartore: “I want to move people to action with my photography.”
87. James Balog: “My hope is that we start to become more thoughtful stewards of our world.”
88. Edward Burtynsky: “My work reflects the human impact on the planet.”

23. Conceptual Photography

89. Floris Neusüss: “Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don’t see.”
90. Duane Michals: “I use photography to help people rediscover the things they have forgotten.”
91. Hank Willis Thomas: “All my work is pointed towards trying to get people to think about how their lives are shaped by the flow of history.”
92. Francesca Woodman: “I am trying to show what it looks like to be enveloped by something that is invisible.”

24. Night Photography

93. Brassai: “The night is wonderfully revealing. The day is only half the story.”
94. Michael Kenna: “Night photography is a meditation. It transforms the mundane into something otherworldly.”
95. Bill Brandt: “It is the artist’s job to reveal the hidden aspects of the city.”
96. Steve McCurry: “The night tells a different story.”

25. Social Documentary Photography

97. Lewis Hine: “Photography can light up darkness and expose ignorance.”
98. Sebastião Salgado: “The beautiful thing about photography is that you can catch an instant of a second that couldn’t exist before and couldn’t exist after.”
99. Mary Ellen Mark: “I take pictures to see what something will look like photographed.”
100. Dorothea Lange: “Photography helps people to see.”

26. Artistic Photography

101. Georgia O’Keeffe: “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.”

To Conclude

Check out these cool 104 photography quotes from different genres! Each quote shows how amazing and diverse photography is as an art. It proves how photos can speak to you, stir up feelings, and freeze special moments.

These thoughts show us that photography goes beyond just taking pictures—it’s a cool way to show your art and tell stories. You may snap photos for fun or love taking pictures or you may enjoy art.

Let these words encourage you to see the world in a new way. Appreciate the special moments that make life great.