Photography Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old photography quotes, photography sayings, and photography proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know. Diane Arbus
Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second. Marc Riboud
A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away. Eudora Welty
If you see something that moves you, and then snap it, you keep a moment. Linda McCartney
In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality. Alfred Stieglitz
Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. Ambrose Bierce
The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE. Ernst Haas
Maybe because it's entirely an artist's eye, patience and skill that makes an image and not his tools. Ken Rockwell
When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls! Ted Grant
Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption. Andre Bazin
The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth. Harold Evans
Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. Dorothea Lange
There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are. Ernst Haas
Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness. W. Eugene Smith
Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure. Tony Benn
Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. Elliott Erwitt
A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you. Brigitte Bardot
It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness. Paul Strand
Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world. unknown
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. Ansel Adams
You don't take a photograph, you make it. Ansel Adams
Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph. Matt Hardy
I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just isn't that good. unknown
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution. Ansel Adams
What the human eye observes causally and incuriously, the eye of the camera notes with relentless fidelity. Berenice Abbott
Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject. Eliot Porter
Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past. Berenice Abbott
Photography concentrates one's eye on the superficial. For that reason it obscures the hidden life which glimmers through the outlines of things like a play of light and shade. One can't catch that even with the sharpest lens. Karl Heiner
The camera can photograph thought. It's better than a paragraph of sweet polemic. Dirk Bogarde
Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited and the wealth and confusion man has created. Edward Steichen