black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I didn’t decide to be a photographer; I just happened to fall into it.

Berenice Abbott

The idea was to interpret science sensibly, with good proportion, good balance and good lighting, so we could understand it.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Balance Idea Photography Understanding
Photography was the medium preeminently qualified to unite art with science. Photography was born in the years which ushered in the scientific age, an offspring of both science and art.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Art Photography Qualified Years
I’m not a nice girl. I’m a photographer.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Girl Nice Photographer
It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term-selectivity.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Penetrate Photography Selectivity Simple Term
To chart a course, one must have a direction. In reality, the eye is no better than the philosophy behind it.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Eye Philosophy Reality
Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Past Photographer Photography
Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Growing Photography Walks
Today we are confronted with reality on the vastest scale mankind has known and this puts a greater responsibility on the photographer.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Reality Responsibility Today
Does not the very word ‘creative’ mean to build, to initiate, to give out, to act – rather than to be acted upon, to be subjective? Living photography is positive in its approach, it sings a song of life – not death.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Living Mean Photography Positive Song
I’m not a nice girl; I’m a photographer. (On being told by a Federal Art Project official, after she photographed the Bowery, that a nice girl should not go into such neighborhoods )
BERENICE ABBOTT

Art Bowery Girl Nice Photography
Imagine a world without photography, one could only imagine.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Photographer Photography World
There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Inspirational Photography Ruin Teacher
I didn’t decide to be a photographer; I just happened to fall into it.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Fall Photographer Photography
I have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Document Fine Photograph
What to me is anathema – a corpse-like, outmoded hangover – is for photography to be a bad excuse for another medium. … Is not photography good enough in itself, that it must be made to look like something else, supposedly superior?
BERENICE ABBOTT

Hangover Looks Photography
Self-conscious artiness is fatal, but it certainly would not hurt to study composition in general. Having a basic understanding of composition would help construct a better organized image.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Hurt Self Understanding
The art is in selecting what is worthwhile to take the trouble about.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Art Photographer Trouble
To chart a course, one must have a direction. In reality, the eye is no better than the philosophy behind it. The photographer creates, evolves a better, more selective, more acute eye by looking ever more sharply at what is going on in the world.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Mean Philosophy Photography
The photographer is the contemporary being par excellence; through his eyes the now becomes the past.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Excellence Eye Past Photography
The photograph may be presented as finely and artistically as you will; but to merit serious consideration, must be directly connected with the world we live in.
BERENICE ABBOTT

May Merit Photography World
I think the important decision for a photographer is to choose a subject that intensely interests him or her.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Decision Important Photography Thinking
The photographer creates, evolves a better, a more selective, more acute seeing eye by looking ever more sharply at what is going on in the world.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Accurate More Photographer Seeing Sharpy
The second challenge has been to impose order onto the things seen and to supply the visual context and the intellectual framework – that to me is the art of photography.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Art Context Framework Impose Photography Supply
What we need of equipment is this: let it possess as good a structure as the real-life content that surrounds us. We need more simplifications to free us for seeing.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Needs Photography Real Structure
Actually, documentary pictures include every subject in the world – good, bad, indifferent. I have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Documentary Photographer World
If a medium is representational by nature of the realistic image formed by a lens, I see no reason why we should stand on our heads to distort that function. On the contrary, we should take hold of that very quality, make use of it, and explore it to the fullest.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Lenses Photography Quality Use
I am so fascinated with this century it will help keep me alive. I’ll be there until the last minute, fighting.
BERENICE ABBOTT

Alive Fighting Lasts Photography

I didn’t decide to be a photographer; I just happened to fall into it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I didn’t decide to be a photographer; I just happened to fall into it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Berenice Abbott Quotes