Quotes by
Saul Leiter

I think that if you know enough about photography you realize that nothing is really that new - if you really knew what has been done and tried by other people you would realize that nothing is thereby new.

My photographs are meant to tickling your left ear...very lightly.

Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

Sometimes I'm amazed by how much you can do as a photographer.

I like it when one is not certain what one sees. When we do not know why the photographer has taken a picture and when we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.

I see something, I take a picture.

Seeing is a neglected enterprise.

I simply looked at the world, not prepared for anything.

I’m supposed to be a pioneer in color. I didn’t know I was a pioneer, but I’ve been told I’m a pioneer. I’ll just go ahead and be a pioneer!
I find it strange that anyone would believe that the only thing that matters is black and white. It’s just idiotic. The history of art is the history of color. The cave paintings had color … [But] there has always been the idea in certain circles that form is more important, that to have too much color is not good, it distracts from your concentration.

I happen to believe in the beauty of simple things. I believe that the most uninteresting thing can be very interesting.

I believe that there is something in you that strives for order, and within that order there’s a certain kind of mishmoshy confusion, and you bring this mishmoshy confusion, if you succeed, into some kind of order. There’s an element of control, and there’s also an element that just happens—if you’re very lucky. Artists need luck.

I think when you take a photograph, if it turns out to be something good, there's a kind of Zen element that takes place. It's difficult to describe. People talk of controlling, but it's not true. You can't control the swirl of reality. If you're very lucky, from time to time, you do something that is good.

I take photographs in my neighborhood. I think that mysterious things happen in familiar places. We don’t always need to run to the other end of the world.

I don’t have a philosophy; I have a camera.

I was hoping to be forgotten. I aspired to be unimportant.

I’m sure it is true of many photographers: One discovers good things that are unknown. The history of photography keeps changing as one learns more about good hidden and unknown things.

I never felt the need to do what everyone else did. And I wasn’t troubled by the fact that other people were doing other things.

I must confess that I have never devoted five seconds to thinking about the tone of my color work.

I didn’t try to communicate any kind of philosophy since I am not a philosopher. I am a photographer. That’s it.

I said to a friend of mine recently that a window covered with raindrops interest me more than a photograph of a famous person.

..lost, confused person who sometimes used the camera with a touch of intelligence — but not too much.

Photography is about finding things. And painting is different - it's about making something.

I have been told that some of my photographs maybe indicate that I am a painter.

There are the things that are out in the open, and there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden.

I go out with my camera and I take pictures because I enjoy capturing certain moments. Of course I don’t know that I’m going to get what I’m going to get; it takes time.

Painting is about making something. Photography is about finding things.

I met somebody at the gallery. And he said to me, I own a photograph of yours. And when I get up in the morning, I look at it and it makes me happy. And I thought that was very nice. It meant I wasn't completely useless.

I don’t attach as much importance to sequencing [in an art book, for example] as other people do. To me the content is more important.

We live in a world full of expectations, and if you have the courage, you ignore the expectations. And you can look forward to trouble.

Whatever complexity people find in the work that I do, must be there, because they find it. I have not set out to be complex.

I like to take things that are very common and to find something in them.

In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music and to paint when I feel like it.

It’s quite possible that my work represents a search for beauty in the most prosaic and ordinary places. One doesn’t have to be in some faraway dreamland in order to find beauty.

In some ways, you have this case where photography influences painting, which influences a painter, who is also a photographer.

I aspire to be unimportant.

I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.

I liked different lenses for different times. I am fond of the telephoto lens, as I am of the normal 50 mm lens. I had at one point a 150 mm lens and I was very fond it. I liked what it did. I experimented a lot. Sometimes I worked with a lens that I had when I might have preferred another lens. I think Picasso once said that he wanted to use green in a painting but since he didn't have it he used red. Perfection is not something I admire. [Laughs]. A touch of confusion is a desirable ingredient.