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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.

Bill Brandt

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

Everything Photography Sports Tried
It is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual’s temperament and environment.
BILL BRANDT

Environment Individual Photographer
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
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.
BILL BRANDT

Approach Dignity Indeed Place Simplest Surroundings
Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.
BILL BRANDT

Dare Mediums Photography
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
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
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
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
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
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.
BILL BRANDT

Emotions Essence Hidden Minds Most Pleasure Simple

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bill Brandt Quotes