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

Ansel Adams

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

Expression Feeling Greatness Photograph
We make images to “honor what is greater and more interesting than we are.”
ANSEL ADAMS

Greatness Honor Image
The best picture is around the corner. Like prosperity.
ANSEL ADAMS

Best Photograph Prosperity
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
I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful – an endless prospect of magic and wonder.
ANSEL ADAMS

Beautiful Believe End Magic Myself Nature Wonder
Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children…let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money…and once destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.
ANSEL ADAMS

Beautiful Children Destroy Leaving Money Ourselves Price
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
I think we can not categorize. Things do not fit into a mold.
ANSEL ADAMS

Collection Myself Thinking
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
ANSEL ADAMS

Focus Image Myself Photograph Silence Word
You don’t make a photograph just with a camera
ANSEL ADAMS

Camera Photograph Yourself
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
You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
ANSEL ADAMS

Art Inspirational Photograph Yourself
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
The quality of place, the reaction to immediate contact with earth and growing things that have a fugal relationship with mountains and sky, is essential to the integrity of our existence on this planet.
ANSEL ADAMS

Existence Growth Integrity Ourselves Place Quality Relationship Sky
I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.
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Art Myself Need
The camera cannot, but the photographer can.
ANSEL ADAMS

Ability Camera Inspirational Photographer Possible
Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum.
ANSEL ADAMS

Art Easy Heart Life Smile World Yourself
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
There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.
ANSEL ADAMS

Art Ignorance Image Photograph Worst
A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.
ANSEL ADAMS

Explanation Need Photograph True Word
How high your awareness level is determines how much meaning you get from your world. Photography can teach you to improve your awareness level.
ANSEL ADAMS

Determination Improvement Photograph Teaching World Yourself
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
ANSEL ADAMS

Care Establishment God Mistake Photograph Relationship
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
ANSEL ADAMS

Camera Goodness Photograph Rule
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.
ANSEL ADAMS

Difficult Disappointment Hard Time Photograph
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.
ANSEL ADAMS

Build Confidence Creation Emotion Encouragement Men Reveal Spirit
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
In my mind’s eye, I visualize how a particular… sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.
ANSEL ADAMS

Ability Excitement Eyes Feeling Goodness Mindset Photograph Practice

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

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

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More Ansel Adams Quotes