190 Quotes by Ansel Adams

The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

I respect everything in change and the solemn beauty of life and death... and therefore, while man is amidst the immense beauty of objective bodies, he must possess the capacity of self-perfection and must observe and represent his world with full confidence.

The artist and the photographer seek the mysteries and the adventure of experience in nature.

I usually have an immediate recognition of the potential image, and I have found that too much concern about matters such as conventional composition may take the edge off the first inclusive reaction.

I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate.

Black and white photography is truly quite a 'departure from reality', and the transition from one aspect of visual magic to another was not as complete as many imagine.

You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.

We observe few objects really closely. As we walk on the earth, we observe the external events at two or three arms’ lengths. If we ride a horse or drive in an automobile, we are further separated from the immediate surround. We see and photograph “scenery”; our vast world is inadequately described as the “landscape.” The most intimate object perceived daily is usually the printed page. The small and commonplace are rarely explored.

It is all very beautiful and magical here – a quality which cannot be described. You have to live it and breathe it, let the sun bake into you.