Photo Quotes

Quotes by
Minor White

[1908 – 1976] American artist photographer

Quotes

65

To engage a sequence we keep in mind the photographs on either side of the one in our eye.
Minor White

Mirrors, messages, manifestations by Minor White

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Very often I try to find something that matches a feeling I have. On the other hand, a lot of times I photograph with nothing specific in mind. I just play it as it comes. If it's good, fine. I find 'letting it happen' relaxing, a playful vacation. Stimulating pictures almost always result.

Minor White

Interviews With Master Photographers : Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Cornell Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Yousuf Karsh, Arnold Newman, Lord Snowdon, Brett Weston by James Danziger

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There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.
Minor White

Interviews With Master Photographers : Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Cornell Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Yousuf Karsh, Arnold Newman, Lord Snowdon, Brett Weston by James Danziger

This book is available from Amazon

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Sometimes we work so fast that we don't really understand what's going on in front of the camera. We just kind of sense that, 'Oh my God, it's significant!' and photograph impulsively while trying to get the exposure right. Exposure occupies my mind while intuition frames the images.
Minor White

Interviews With Master Photographers : Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Cornell Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Yousuf Karsh, Arnold Newman, Lord Snowdon, Brett Weston by James Danziger

This book is available from Amazon

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In putting images together I become active, and excitement is of another order – synthesis overshadows analysis.
Minor White

Mirrors, messages, manifestations by Minor White

This book is available from Amazon

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Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts.
Minor White

Mirrors, messages, manifestations by Minor White

This book is available from Amazon

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Vision without association - pristine vision.
Minor White

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So help me find opportunities which offer friends unclosed photographs which will present them a chance to close circles out of their roundness.
Minor White

Mirrors, messages, manifestations by Minor White

This book is available from Amazon

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This unexpected image was the record of an inner state that I did not remember seeing and he did not remember experiencing at the moment of exposure.
Minor White

Mirrors, messages, manifestations by Minor White

This book is available from Amazon

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A sequence of photographs is like a cinema of stills. The time and space between photographs is filled by the beholder, first of all from himself, then from what he can read in the implications of design, the suggestions springing from treatment, and any symbolism that might grow from within the subject itself.
Minor White

Mirrors, messages, manifestations by Minor White

This book is available from Amazon

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Sequences originate for me from some hidden place. Though I habitually play photographs against each other, or words against images in pairs, triplets, or rows of four with expectations of magic, sequences originate from within. And I prefer to let them. In fact I cannot seriously do otherwise than photograph on impulse and let whatever words will, flow spontaneously.
Minor White

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...a very receptive state of mind...not unlike a sheet of film itself - seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second's exposure conceives a life in it.
Minor White

More Joy of Photography by Eastman Kodak (Editor)

This book is available from Amazon

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Let the subject generate its own photographs. Become a camera.
Minor White

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...innocence of eye has a quality of its own. It means to see as a child sees, with freshness and acknowledgment of the wonder; it also means to see as an adult sees who has gone full circle and once again sees as a child - with freshness and an even deeper sense of wonder.
Minor White

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Here, have some more lettuce, it's organic, you know.

Minor White

Minor White's usual advice to his students.

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Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.
Minor White

from William Neill in the Outdoor Photographer Magazine, article entitled "Landscapes for my Spirit" 1997

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One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.
Minor White

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Different levels of photography require different levels of understanding and skill. A “press the button, let George do the rest” photographer needs little or no technical knowledge of photography. A zone system photographer takes more responsibility. He visualizes before he presses the button, and afterwards calibrates for predictable print values.
Minor White

[Minor White, Richard Zakia, Peter Lorenz “The New Zone System Manual”, Morgan & Morgan, Inc., Dobbs Ferry, New York 1978 (Fourth printing), p. 93]

#photography #skill #zone #photographer #button #technical
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We emphasized the creativeness that happens at the moment of seeing over the kind that takes place in the dark room.
Minor White

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The development of a love of medium and a responsibility for one's own pictures is an overall goal.

Minor White

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At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.
Minor White

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We could teach photography as a way to make a living, and best of all, somehow to get students to experience for themselves photography as a way of life.
Minor White

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The photographer is probably more akin to the sculptor in wood or stone than to painters as far as his mental creative state goes. The whole visual world, the whole world of events are wraps and coverings he feels and believes to be underneath. Often he passes a corner, saying to himself "There is a picture here"; and if he cannot find it, considers himself the insensitive one. He can look day after day—and one day the picture is visible! Nothing has changed except himself; although, to be fair, sometimes he had to wait till the light performed the magic.
Minor White

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Because a man trains himself to see like a camera, it is only more appropriate that he uses a camera to record his seeing.
Minor White

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Dreams and photographs have something in common; those photographs that yield to contemplation at least have a quality about them that tempt one to set associations going.
Minor White

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I strive to undo my reactions to civilization’s syncopated demands and hope that inner peace, quiet, and lack of concern for specific results may enable a stance of gratitude and balance—a receptiveness that will allow the participation of grace.
Minor White

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The spring-tight line between reality and photography has been stretched relentlessly, but it has not been broken. These abstractions... have not left the world of appearances; for to do so is to break the camera’s strongest point—its authenticity.
Minor White

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I have discovered camera is both a way of life and not enough to live by.
Minor White

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One should photograph objects, not only for what they are but for what else they are.
Minor White

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full tide with barely a moment of lyricism, none of beauty, and tragedy only a match struck on the seat of the pants…. Actually Klein did not photograph a city; he matched with cheap sensational photography the vulgarity of life in all its ugliness.
Minor White

1957, On William Klein’s book New York

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Self-discovery through a camera? I am scared to look for fear of discovering how shallow my Self is!
Minor White

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Postpone judgment! When starting to read, experience or take part in a photograph (or picture of any kind) first put aside both like and dislike. Leave criticism to the last, or better still forget to criticize.
Minor White

Minor White and Walter Chappell, from "Some Methods for Experiencing Photographs,” Aperture vol. 5, no. 4, 1957

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When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don't leave until you have captured its essence.
Minor White

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