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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

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
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
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
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
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 interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.
BILL BRANDT

Conventions Photography Sports
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
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
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
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
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
And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment.
BILL BRANDT

Dark Light Photography
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
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.
BILL BRANDT

Hurry Opportunities Photography Profession
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
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

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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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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