Ansel Adams Quotes

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.

A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.

Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum.

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.

Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.

The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!

There are two people in every photograph: the photographer and the viewer

There are no forms in nature. Nature is a vast, chaotic collection of shapes. You as an artist create configurations out of chaos. You make a formal statement where there was none to begin with. All art is a combination of an external event and an internal event… I make a photograph to give you the equivalent of what I felt. Equivalent is still the best word.

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.

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 wonder surrounding him.

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.

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.

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.

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.

Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.

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.

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.

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

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!

Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.

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.

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

Notebook. No photographer should be without one!

"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?""

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.