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What is photography?

Here are 20 famous quotes from photographers about photography. These seem to provide varying views on what photography is, hence the title:

  1. “Photography is the story I fail to put into words.” – Destin Sparks
  2. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever…it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind
  3. “Photography is a love affair with life.” – Burk Uzzle
  4. “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange
  5. “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” – Diane Arbus
  6. “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
  7. “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it.” – Irving Penn
  8. “Photography is the power of observation, not the application of technology.” – Ken Rockwell
  9. “I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.” – Annie Leibovitz
  10. “Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
  11. “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt
  12. “Photography is the beauty of life captured.” – Tara Chisholm
  13. “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” – Ansel Adams
  14. “Photography is an extension of the eye, mind, and heart.” – Peter Adams
  15. “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.” – Andy Warhol
  16. “The camera makes you forget you’re there. It’s not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much.” – Annie Leibovitz
  17. “Photography is a way to capture a moment, a memory, and an emotion.” – Kailash Sankhala
  18. “Photography is not about cameras, gadgets and gizmos. Photography is about photographers. A camera didn’t make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel.” – Peter Adams
  19. “A good photograph is knowing where to look.” – Edward Weston
  20. “Photography is the art of frozen time… the ability to store emotion and feelings within a frame.” – Meshack Otieno
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