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Ansel Adams Quotes

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"A good photograph is knowing where to stand."

"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration."

"In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice."

"To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things."

"When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without."

"Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art."

"I know some photographs that are extraodrinary in their power and conviction, but it is difficult in photography to overcome the superficial power or subject; the concept and statement must be quite convincing in themselves to win over a dramatic and compelling subject situation."

"Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment."

"We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium."

"Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop."

"I am probably afraid that some spectator will not understand my photography - therefore I proceed to make it really less understandable by writing defensibly about it."

"Some photographers take reality...and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation."

"I tried to keep both arts alive, but the camera won. I found that while the camera does not express the soul, perhaps a photograph can!"

"Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and the wonder surrounding him."

"In some photographs the essence of light and space dominate; in others, the substance of rock and wood, and the luminous insistence of growing things...It is my intention to present-through the medium of photography-intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to spectators..."

"There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit."

"There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept."

"It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment."
Nature

"Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."

"Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world."

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