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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.

Ansel Adams

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

Nature Photograph Present World
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Elegant Silence Talk Yourself
A photograph is not an accident – it is a concept.
ANSEL ADAMS

Accident Mistake Photograph
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Act Art Love Music People Photograph Reading Yourself
The best picture is around the corner. Like prosperity.
ANSEL ADAMS

Best Photograph Prosperity
A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looked into.
ANSEL ADAMS

Photograph See
A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels…
ANSEL ADAMS

Expression Feeling Greatness Oneself Photograph
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Expression Imagination Limitation Person Photograph
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Leaving Light Nature Quiet
There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.
ANSEL ADAMS

Inspirational People Photograph View
Impression is not enough. Design, style, technique – these, too, are not enough. Art must reach further than impression or self-revelation .
ANSEL ADAMS

Art Design Enough Style Technique
I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate.
ANSEL ADAMS

Beautiful Believe Fate Future Myself People
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Ability Photograph Possible Remember
With all art expression, when something is seen, it is a vivid experience, sudden, compelling, and inevitable.
ANSEL ADAMS

Art Experience Expression
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Emotion Emotional Existence Lake Sea Spiritual World
It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.
ANSEL ADAMS

Camera Photograph Technology
It is easy to take a photograph, but it is harder to make a masterpiece in photography than in any other art medium.
ANSEL ADAMS

Art Easy Photograph
Once destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.
ANSEL ADAMS

Beautiful Destroy Nature Price Worth
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
ANSEL ADAMS

Care Establishment God Mistake Photograph Relationship
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Hope Negative Photograph Serious Weapon
Ask yourself, ‘Why am I seeing and feeling this? How am I growing? What am I learning?’ Remember: Every coincidence is potentially meaningful.
ANSEL ADAMS

Feeling Growth Potential Remember See Yourself
Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.
ANSEL ADAMS

God Myself Photograph Place
Some photographers take reality and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.
ANSEL ADAMS

Love Photograph Reality Spirit Technique
Bad weather makes for good photography.
ANSEL ADAMS

Bad Climate Goodness Photograph
The camera cannot, but the photographer can.
ANSEL ADAMS

Ability Camera Inspirational Photographer Possible
The only things in my life that compatibly exists with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.
ANSEL ADAMS

Creation Existence Human Life Nature Spirit
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.
ANSEL ADAMS

Difficult Disappointment Hard Time Photograph

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ansel Adams Quotes