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No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.

Bill Brandt

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 the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.
BILL BRANDT

Country Jobs Photography Receptiveness
Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried!
BILL BRANDT

Everything Photography Sports Tried
It is essential for the photographer to know the effect of his lenses. The lens is his eye, and it makes or ruins his pictures.
BILL BRANDT

Eye Photography Thinking
Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.
BILL BRANDT

Dare Mediums Photography
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

Interfere Liter Observed Photographer Shapes
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.
BILL BRANDT

Asset Develop Leamed Photographer
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.
BILL BRANDT

Occasions Often Photography Simple Work
The vital elements are often momentary, change-sent things … a gleam of light on water, a trail of smoke from a passing train, a cat crossing the threshold.
BILL BRANDT

Cat Light Passing Stress
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.
BILL BRANDT

Details Height Patience Seen Sometimes
I am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.
BILL BRANDT

Conventions Photography Sports
The photographer must possess and preserve the receptive faculties of a child who looks at the world for the first time.
BILL BRANDT

Children Looks World
Sometimes they are a matter of luck; the photographer could not expect or hope for them. Sometimes they are a matter of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that he has seen and lost or for one that he anticipates.
BILL BRANDT

Patience Photography Waiting
If there is any method in the way I take pictures, I believe it lies in this: See the subject first. Do not try to force it to be a picture of this, that or the other thing. Stand apart from it. Then something will happen. The subject will reveal itself.
BILL BRANDT

Believe Lying Photography
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.
BILL BRANDT

Opportunity Photography Thinking
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.
BILL BRANDT

Believe Emotional Photography
Photography has no rules, it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.
BILL BRANDT

Matter Photography Sports

No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.

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No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bill Brandt Quotes