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

One of the most important pieces of equipment, for the photographer who really wants to improve, is a great big wastepaper basket.

No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.

We were in the shadow of the mountains, the light was cool and quiet and no wind was stirring. The aspen trunks were slightly greenish and the leaves were a vibrant yellow.

Impression is not enough. Design, style, technique – these, too, are not enough. Art must reach further than impression or self-revelation .

You don’t make a photograph just with a camera

The ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.

As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes and seas and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.

I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

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.

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.

Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.

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

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

I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite.

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.

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.