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Quotes by Ansel Adams

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.
– Ansel Adams
A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
– Ansel Adams
A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.
– Ansel Adams
A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.
– Ansel Adams
Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and the wonder surrounding him.
– Ansel Adams
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
– Ansel Adams
I am probably afraid that some spectator will not understand my photography - therefore I proceed to make it really less understandable by writing defensibly about it.
– Ansel Adams
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.
– Ansel Adams
I tried to keep both arts alive, but the camera won. I found that while the camera does not express the soul, perhaps a photograph can!
– Ansel Adams
In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.
– Ansel Adams
In some photographs the essence of light and space dominate; in others, the substance of rock and wood, and the luminous insistence of growing things. It is my intention to present-through the medium of photography-intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to spectators.
– Ansel Adams
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
– Ansel Adams
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
– Ansel Adams
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.
– Ansel Adams
Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.
– Ansel Adams
Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.
– Ansel Adams
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.
– Ansel Adams
Notebook. No photographer should be without one!
– Ansel Adams
Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
– Ansel Adams
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
– Ansel Adams
Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?
– Ansel Adams
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.
– Ansel Adams
Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.
– Ansel Adams
The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.
– Ansel Adams
There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.
– Ansel Adams
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
– Ansel Adams
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.
– Ansel Adams
There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.
– Ansel Adams
These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.
– Ansel Adams
To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.
– Ansel Adams
Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.
– Ansel Adams
We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium.
– Ansel Adams
When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.
– Ansel Adams
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
– Ansel Adams
Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.
– Ansel Adams
You don't take a photograph, you make it.
– Ansel Adams
I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term -- meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching -- there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
– Ansel Adams
No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.
– Ansel Adams