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No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.

Bill Brandt

The good photographer will produce a competent picture every time whatever his subject. But only when his subject makes and immediate and direct appeal to his own interests will he produce a work of distinction.
BILL BRANDT

Distinction Photographer Produce
Very rarely are we able to free our minds of thoughts and emotions and just see for the simple pleasure of seeing. And so long as we fail to do this, so long will the essence of things be hidden from us.
BILL BRANDT

Emotions Essence Hidden Minds Most Pleasure Simple
Sometimes they are a matter of luck, sometimes of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that you have seen. It is usually some incidental detail that heightens the effect of a picture, stressing a pattern, deepening the sense of atmosphere.
BILL BRANDT

Details Height Patience Seen Sometimes
I photographed what the camera was seeing. I interfered very little, and the lens produced anatomical images and shapes which my eyes had never observed.
BILL BRANDT

Interfere Liter Observed Photographer Shapes
Photography has no rules, it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.
BILL BRANDT

Matter Photography Sports
It is essential for the photographer to know the effect of his lenses. The lens is his eye, and it makes or ruins his pictures.
BILL BRANDT

Eye Photography Thinking
A feeling for composition is a great asset. I think it is very much a matter of instinct. It can perhaps be developed, but I doubt if it can be learned.
BILL BRANDT

Asset Develop Leamed Photographer
We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas to stand and stare
BILL BRANDT

Busy Most Obsessed Ourselves Satre Worried
Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.
BILL BRANDT

Dare Mediums Photography
And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment.
BILL BRANDT

Dark Light Photography
By temperament I am not unduly excitable and certainly not trigger-happy. I think twice before I shoot and very often do not shoot at all.
BILL BRANDT

Opportunity Photography Thinking
Indeed, I feel the simplest approach can often be most effective. A subject placed squarely in the center of the frame, if attention is not distracted from it by fussy surroundings, has a simple dignity which makes it all the more impressive.
BILL BRANDT

Approach Dignity Indeed Place Simplest Surroundings
I am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.
BILL BRANDT

Conventions Photography Sports
It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.
BILL BRANDT

Country Jobs Photography Receptiveness
Sometimes they are a matter of luck; the photographer could not expect or hope for them. Sometimes they are a matter of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that he has seen and lost or for one that he anticipates.
BILL BRANDT

Patience Photography Waiting
The vital elements are often momentary, change-sent things … a gleam of light on water, a trail of smoke from a passing train, a cat crossing the threshold.
BILL BRANDT

Cat Light Passing Stress

No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.

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No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.

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Popular Authors

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