Photography Technique Quotes

My main camera is a Nikon D3. I use a French camera from the 1800s for wet plate photography, I use a Hasselblad sometimes. But to me the camera really doesn't matter that much. I don't have a preference for film or digital.

I'm staying with film, and with silver prints, and no Photoshop. That's the way I learned photography: You make your picture in the camera. Now, so much is made in the computer... I'm not anti-digital; I just think, for me, film works better.

Contrast is what makes photography interesting.

I think that lens flares can work really well under certain circumstances. Personally, I am trying to get rid of them most of the time. I don't like artifacts that draw attention to the surface of the image.

I had an instamatic wind-on camera and remember buying the flashcubes and fixing on top of the frame. The flash credits were limited so you had to be careful not to waste any.

You know, differentiating between training and matches. If they are all matches it becomes very natural to shoot them, although Dan thinks I should shoot more of them. I think I shoot plenty of them.

A small lens gives you a very specific look. You don't have a shallow depth of field.

...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.

I'm too impatient to use a tripod.

However spontaneous I hope a photograph will look, I always put a lot of thought into how I can make it happen. The very best pictures are the most relaxed, so a lot of fussing around technically can completely break the spell, and everyone freezes up with nerves.

With photography, everything is in the eye and these days I feel young photographers are missing the point a bit. People always ask about cameras but it doesn't matter what camera you have. You can have the most modern camera in the world but if you don't have an eye, the camera is worthless. Young people know more about modern cameras and lighting than I do. When I started out in photography I didn't own an exposure meter - I couldn't , they didn't exist! I had to guess.

The experience of using a Rolleiflex camera is very different than using a SLR.

You become technically proficient whether you want to or not, the more you take pictures.

Learning how to use different formats has made me a better photographer. When I started working in medium format, it made me a better 35 mm photographer. When I started working in 4x5, it made me a better medium-format photographer.

I'm sometimes called a 'documentary photographer' but... a man operating under that definition could take a sly pleasure in the disguise. Very often I'm doing one thing when I'm thought to be doing another.

When I began to photograph nudes, I let myself be guided by this camera, and instead of photographing what I saw, 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.

Nowadays, people shoot digitally and it's all in color, but you press a button and it all goes to black and white. But it's not lit for black and white. So, it's a tricky thing. If you're going do black and white, you better remember to separate things with light, because color ain't gonna be there.

Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing.

The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it.

The only thing that gets in the way of a really good photograph, is the camera

Thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards - never while actually taking a photograph.

Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.

The easy bit is picking up a camera and pointing and shooting. But then you have to decide what it is you’re trying to say and express.

I think the 50mm lens is an extremely good discipline lens; it requires you to see in a more refined way, not just tighter.

I think that if you're a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.