190 Quotes by Ansel Adams

The ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.

A photograph is not an accident - it is a concept.

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.

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.

It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.

It is easy to take a photograph, but it is harder to make a masterpiece in photography than in any other art medium.

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.

Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.