Elliott Erwitt Quotes & Sayings

I'll always be an amateur photographer. — Elliott Erwitt

Making pictures is a very simple act. There is no great secret in photography ... schools are a bunch of crap. You just need practice and application of what you've learned. My absolute conviction is that if you are working reasonably well the only important thing is to keep shooting ... it doesn't matter whether you are making money or not. Keep working, because as you go through the process of working things begin to happen. — Elliott Erwitt

The best things happen when you just happen to be somewhere with a camera. — Elliott Erwitt

I don't think you can create luck. You're either lucky or you're not. I don't know if it's really luck or if it's just curiosity. I think the main ingredient, or a main ingredient for photography is curiosity. If you're curious enough and if you get up in the morning and go out and take pictures, you're likely to be more lucky than if you just stay at home. — Elliott Erwitt

There's no great mystique to photography. A lot of photographers like to put their hands up to their forehead and tell you how they've suffered and so forth. Well, I just rent a car and drive to the place and take the pictures. — Elliott Erwitt

I'm an amateur photographer, apart from being a professional one, and I think maybe my amateur pictures are the better ones. — Elliott Erwitt

It's almost embarrassing, but I do have one trick for taking portraits on commission. I carry one of these little bicycle horns in my pocket, and once in a while, when someone is sour-faced or stiff, I blow my horn. It sort of shatters the barriers. It's silly, but it works. — Elliott Erwitt

A visual sense is something you either have or you don't. — Elliott Erwitt

You don't study photography, you do it — Elliott Erwitt

I appreciate simplicity, true beauty that lasts over time, and a little wit and eclecticism that make life more fun. — Elliott Erwitt

If your subjects are eternal ... they'll survive. — Elliott Erwitt

I enjoy nothing more than spending time with my loved ones, young and old, and at least once a year we get together for a formal family photograph. — Elliott Erwitt

I'm not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious. — Elliott Erwitt

All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice. — Elliott Erwitt

Photography is an art of observation - it's about creating something extraordinary out of the ordinary. You choose a frame and then wait until the right time for something magical to come along and fill it. — Elliott Erwitt

I don't really have a favorite camera. I use a Leica and Canon a lot. It depends, especially professionally, on the requirements. But my carry-around camera is a Leica. — Elliott Erwitt

Something catches your eye, or your interest. You attack it in some way or observe it in some way, and try to put it in some kind of form and take a picture. It's as simple as that. — Elliott Erwitt

Do what the client wants, not what you want. — Elliott Erwitt

You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy. — Elliott Erwitt

Dogs don't mind being photographed in compromising situations. — Elliott Erwitt

If you've got no responsibility and don't have to generate a certain amount of cash each month, and can live on a shoestring, and are ambitious enough, then you might have a chance. You can be dedicated but that is no guarantee that you'll make it. I rely on a hunch, a little luck, and some cunning. — Elliott Erwitt

You must have a visual sense if you want to be a photographer. It is a very subtle thing, this visual business. — Elliott Erwitt

The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words. — Elliott Erwitt

My life has been quite interesting professionally. — Elliott Erwitt

After following the crowd for a while, I'd then go 180 degrees in the exact opposite direction. It always worked for me. — Elliott Erwitt

Making books is a very specific kind of activity. It's not really a collection of your best pictures - although it is - but it's also a way of presenting your work so that it's not repetitive, so that it flows, and so that it makes sense in a book. — Elliott Erwitt

Now very often events are set up for photographers ... The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist. — Elliott Erwitt

Balance of light is the problem, not the amount. Balance between shadows and highlights determines where the emphasis goes in the picture ... make sure the major light in a picture falls at right angles to the camera. — Elliott Erwitt

You have to devote yourself totally to be successful at it. — Elliott Erwitt

Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy-the tone range isn't right and things like that-but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention. — Elliott Erwitt

I'm almost violent about that stuff - electronic manipulation of pictures. I think it's an abomination. I reject it all. I mean, it's OK for selling corn flakes or automobiles or for taking pimples out of Elizabeth Taylor's face, but it undermines the thing that photography is about, which is about observation and not about manipulation of images. — Elliott Erwitt

I like to think I keep my mind open. When I walk the streets I don't look for anything in particular. I come from a philosophy that believes you shouldn't have preconceived notions - that you don't need a gimmick. That you should just photograph what you react to - what you see. — Elliott Erwitt

As a professional photographer I take photographs for other people to see - but I want them to see what I see. So I never assume that only a few people will appreciate what I do. At all times, the public should be able to understand what I've done, even if they don't understand how I've done it. — Elliott Erwitt

The advantage of taking pictures of the famous is that they get published. — Elliott Erwitt

I wasn't imposing my presence on anyone, which is very important for a would- be journalist. I stayed back. Always let people be themselves. — Elliott Erwitt

If you're not a curious person, you're certainly not going to be a good photographer. — Elliott Erwitt

I like things that have to do with what is real, elegant, well presented and without excessive style. In other words, just fine observation. — Elliott Erwitt

The most awful museums are in China. They have magnificent stuff on display and just the worst way of displaying it. They just don't spend money on lighting and installation. — Elliott Erwitt

Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times ... I just shoot at what interests me at that moment. — Elliott Erwitt

The advice I would give to any photographer - young, old or in-between - is to explore anything visual because this is, after all, how you express your artistry. Look at paintings, movies, drawings, sculptures - look at anything visual and try to integrate that into your visual sense. After that, go out and take pictures and keep on taking pictures! — Elliott Erwitt

Covering a historic event is perfectly legitimate. It's not sneaking into somebody's boudoir ... These people belong to history, and not to record that if you have the opportunity would be wrong. — Elliott Erwitt

Photoshop is useful in many ways but must NEVER be used for the altering of photographs. My assistants and my agency do whatever Photoshop work for me that may be required as it is too complicated for my brain. — Elliott Erwitt

All of my marriages lasted seven years. — Elliott Erwitt

When I get up in the morning I brush my teeth and go about my business, and if I am going anywhere interesting I take my camera along. — Elliott Erwitt

A picture should be looked at - not talked about. — Elliott Erwitt

Working myself into a position of total versatility, so that I can do anything I want to do at the time I want to do it. Whether I do it or not is another question. — Elliott Erwitt

I don't like explosions. I don't mind progress. But digital photography has made every man, woman, child and chimpanzee a photographer of sorts and consequently has numbed down the general quality of photographs. — Elliott Erwitt

Somehow Photoshop and the ease with which one can produce an image has degraded the quality of photography in general. — Elliott Erwitt

Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures. — Elliott Erwitt

The work I care about is terribly simple. I observe. I try to entertain. But above all I want my pictures to be emotional. Little else interests me in photography. — Elliott Erwitt

If you keep your cool, you'll get everything. — Elliott Erwitt

Good photography is not about Zone Printing or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. — Elliott Erwitt

Making people laugh is one of the highest achievements you can have. And when you can make someone laugh and cry, alternatively, as Chaplin does - now that's the highest of all personal achievements. I don't know that I aim for it, but I recognize it as the supreme goal. — Elliott Erwitt

Everybody's got to do something ... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on. — Elliott Erwitt

You don't study photography, you just do it. — Elliott Erwitt

Photography is simply a function of noticing things. — Elliott Erwitt

The main thing is to study pictures and stop listening to the pontifictaions of photographers. Photographers aren't oracles of wisdom. If they're good photographers, then take a good look at their pictures - what else do you need? — Elliott Erwitt

It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you see into a picture. — Elliott Erwitt

Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive. — Elliott Erwitt

In those simpler days, you could just take pictures of movie stars and show them the way they were, as normal human beings. And if I felt part of any movement at the time, it was just to do that - to be journalistic and photograph what is, rather than what is made up. — Elliott Erwitt

Professionally I've evolved with what's required, but the pictures I do for pleasure haven't changed, except for the cars in the background, the clothing. I haven't changed at all. — Elliott Erwitt

I like museums in Berlin a lot, especially in the eastern part. They're extraordinarily good. — Elliott Erwitt

I dislike landscapes. I only like people, and plastic flowers. — Elliott Erwitt

I've been around so long, most editors think I'm dead. — Elliott Erwitt

Most photographers work best alone, myself included. — Elliott Erwitt

Quality ... has to do with intention. — Elliott Erwitt

The ratio of successful shots is one in God-knows-how-many. Sometimes you'll get several in one contact sheet, and sometimes it's none for days. But as long as you go on taking pictures, you're likely to get a good one at some point. — Elliott Erwitt

My 'work' is about seeing not about ideas. — Elliott Erwitt

Photography is a craft. Anyone can learn a craft with normal intelligence and application. To take it beyond the craft is something else. That's when magic comes in. And I don't know that there's any explanation for that. — Elliott Erwitt

Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing. — Elliott Erwitt

The thing is that when you don't carry a camera, that's when you see pictures in particular, or at least that's when you think you see pictures in particular. When you do carry it, if you do see one on the occasion that you do, you can take it. — Elliott Erwitt

It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby. — Elliott Erwitt

I see no difference between my pictures that people consider amusing and the rest. To me, it's all serious work - they're just a reaction to what I see. I don't leave this apartment in the morning and say to myself 'Today I'm going to be funny and tomorrow I'm going to be sad.' — Elliott Erwitt