Photography has no rules, it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.
BILL BRANDTIt 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.
More Bill Brandt Quotes
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By professional standards I do not waste a lot of film; but by the standards of many of my colleagues I probably miss quite a few of my opportunities. Still, the things I am after are not in a hurry as a rule.
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Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.
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I am not very interested in extraordinary angles. They can be effective on certain occasions, but I do not feel the necessity for them in my own work.
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Andre Breton once said that a portrait should not only be an image but an oracle one questions, and that the photographer’s aim should be a profound likeness, which physically and morally predicts the subject’s entire future.
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The photographer must possess and preserve the receptive faculties of a child who looks at the world for the first time.
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But I did not always know just what it was I wanted to photograph. I believe it is important for a photographer to discover this, for unless he finds what it is that excites him, what it is that calls forth at once an emotional response, he is unlikely to achieve his best work.
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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 a child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country
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We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas to stand and stare
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When I began to photograph nudes, I let myself be guided by this camera, and instead of photographing what I saw,
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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