Quotes by
Lord Snowdon

I think it is quite wrong to photograph, for example, Garbo, if she doesn't want to be photographed. Now I would have loved to photograph her, but she obviously didn't want to be photographed so I didn't follow it up. Then somebody will photograph her walking down the street because she has to walk down the street, and I mind that sort of intrusion. I think this is horrible.

To me, The goal is to move people, to make people think, but never, never at the expense of the person you're photographing. To laugh with, yes - but never to laugh at.

If there is a good thing about photography, it is that it can be easily enjoyed.

A telephoto lens is all right for animals or sport but too intrusive for people who are unaware. If you want a close-up view you should move yourself if it is possible. The trouble is that so many photographers seem afraid to move in.

I believe that photographs should be simple technically, and easy to look at. They shouldn’t be directed at other photographers; their point is to make ordinary people react – to laugh, or to see something they hadn’t taken in before, or to be touched. But not to wince, I think. One of the most glib things that anybody can do with a camera is to be cutting or sardonic.

I think it’s all absolute nonsense how people talk about photography as being an art. It’s a very menial career that you do if you draw badly. Now they teach it at the Royal College of Art and get grand about it. It’s the only course there that I don’t understand.

The blue shirt is anonymous and yet a kind of uniform," says Snowdon. "It's a simple backdrop that leaves us to focus on the sitter's face without distraction.