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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

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
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
BILL BRANDT

Children Country Jobs Receptiveness Something
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
We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas to stand and stare
BILL BRANDT

Busy Most Obsessed Ourselves Satre Worried
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
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
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.
BILL BRANDT

Oracles Portraits Profound
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
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

Paper Photography Shade
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
A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere.
BILL BRANDT

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

Dare Mediums Photography
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
When I began to photograph nudes, I let myself be guided by this camera, and instead of photographing what I saw,
BILL BRANDT

Beauty Cameras Eye

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.

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Popular Authors

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