Ansel Quotes & Sayings

I think it would be ridiculous to work with Tom Hardy. I hear some crazy things about him, and he's also really good. — Ansel Elgort

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

You don't take a picture, you make a picture. — Ansel Adams

The quality of place, the reaction to immediate contact with earth and growing things that have a fugal relationship with mountains and sky, is essential to the integrity of our existence on this planet. — Ansel Adams

Nicholas Sparks and John Green are very different writers. — Ansel Elgort

The whole world is, to me, very much "alive" - all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can't look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life - the things going on - within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood. — Ansel Adams

I don't believe in spending money lavishly, now that I'm making money. — Ansel Elgort

I can't help it, and I'm not sorry for it; I'm even a little proud. People think I'm cold and unfeeling, but that's a price I've always been willing to pay. The truth is that I'm beyond help; most people are; and it only angers me to see my sisters or my friends here in town wasting their time. To forestall or cover my anger, I jump in front of them, and suddenly I myself have turned into the person come to provide comfort, reassurance, help, whatever it is they originally desired to provide me with. I take their occasion and make it my own. — Russell Banks

A photograph is usually looked at- seldom looked into. — Ansel Adams

To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer. — Ansel Adams

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. — Ansel Adams

I live a lonely photographic life here in Santa Fe. I do see Eliot Porter occasionally, and Ansel storms through every so often, otherwise I plug along in my old fashioned way. — Laura Gilpin

I would like to do more independent films. — Ansel Elgort

I can tap dance a little bit. — Ansel Elgort

I don't want to just be an actor my whole life. I mean I do want to be an actor my whole life but not only an actor, I want to be an artist. — Ansel Elgort

All I can do in my writing is to stimulate a certain amount of thought, clarify some technical facts and date my work. But when I preach sharpness, brilliancy, scale, etc., I am just mouthing words, because no words can really describe those terms and qualities it takes the actual print to say, here it is. — Ansel Adams

'East of Eden' is an important story for me. It's about a kid that's misunderstood and feels like he's not loved by his father. It's a very father-son kind of story, and it's not until the end that they sort of make up. I like that because every boy has trouble with his father, so it's very relatable. — Ansel Elgort

All I want to do is work. — Ansel Elgort

Photograph not only what you see but also what you feel. — Ansel Adams

Art is both the taking and giving of beauty; the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the inter-relations of these. — Ansel Adams

'The Fault in Our Stars' is a beautiful film that's really positive. The second half gets sad, but it's always positive. — Ansel Elgort

What's interesting to me is the fact that creatively, I can do anything now and people will pay attention, and if I suck, hopefully they will stop paying attention very quickly, but if I'm good, then I have my foot in the door, and people have paid attention, and I did a good job, and people are like, 'Oh, wow!' — Ansel Elgort

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

From then on, we were simply different people. Not new people; different. — Russell Banks

To the vast majority of people a photograph is an image of something within their direct experience: a more-or-less factual reality. It is difficult for them to realize that the photograph can be the source of experience, as well as the reflection of spiritual awareness of the world and of self. — 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

There are certain things you don't discuss with Ansel, especially if you don't agree. — Imogen Cunningham

I'm starting to get a following on Twitter. That's a really awesome power to have. It gives me the opportunity to make any kind of art I want. — Ansel Elgort

So when I became interested in photography and further being inspired by the work that I saw of Ansel and others, it was a natural extension to go back to these places that I knew as a kid and explore them with my camera. — John Sexton

I had a birthday party with my family and friends at a house, and Chipotle catered. It was beautiful. — Ansel Elgort

We make images to "honor what is greater and more interesting than we are." — Ansel Adams

A photograph is not an accident - is a concept. It exists at, or before, the moment of exposure of the negative. — Ansel Adams

Photographs of them alive and smiling would have made me cry and fall down and beat the earth with my fists; their actual dead faces only sealed me off from myself. — Russell Banks

The camera cannot, but the photographer can. — Ansel Adams

We either have wild places or we don't. We admit the spiritual-emotional validity of wild, beautiful places or we don't. We have a philosophy of simplicity of experience in these wild places or we don't. We admit an almost religious devotion to the clean exposition of the wild, natural earth or we don't. — Ansel Adams

My style is clubby and groovy - you can jump to it, but you don't just have to just jump to it. It's not just really bass-heavy and hurts your ears; you move with it, and it sounds kind of tribal. — Ansel Elgort

So many movies just have two pretty people thrown together. — Ansel Elgort

The way we deal with death depends on how it's imagined for us beforehand, by our parents and the people who surround them, and what happens to us early on.[ ... ] Instead, we believe the lie, that death, unlike taxes, can be postponed indefinitely, and we spend our lives defending that belief. Some people are very good at it, and they become our nation's heroes. Some, like me, see the lie early for what it is, fake it for a while and grow bitter, and then go beyond bitterness to ... to what? To this, I suppose. Cowardice. Adulthood. — Russell Banks

I like romantic dates - going on a long walk in Central Park and then taking the subway downtown and going out to eat and ordering oysters. After that, you walk around again and talk. — Ansel Elgort

Trained as a musician, [photographer Ansel] Adams understood the richness of variation that could be unfolded from a simple theme. — John Szarkowski

I'm not that big of a reader, to be honest. — Ansel Elgort

I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is. — Ansel Adams

Photography is an investigation of both the outer and the inner worlds. The first experiences with the camera involve looking at the world beyond the lens, trusting the instrument will 'capture' something 'seen.' The terms shoot and take are not accidental; they represent an attitude of conquest and appropriation. Only when the photographer grows into perception and creative impulse does the term make define a condition of empathy between the external and the internal events. — Ansel Adams

My thing with fans is, it's always about being really good to them and taking the time to take every picture. If there are 300 people, you should take 300 pictures - you shouldn't take 250 because then fifty people will go home sad. Why would you do that? — Ansel Elgort

I don't want anyone part of my love life besides me and the person I'm loving. — Ansel Elgort

success is 99% failure — Henry Ford

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

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

I absolutely should be on social media, and I think every person who's an influencer should be, and should be doing good things. — Ansel Elgort

Most actors nowadays are models turned actors. That's why a lot of young actors are terrible. You have to learn how to act. It is not something that you can just do. — Ansel Elgort

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. — Ansel Adams

I think everyone should have social media - all young people, at least. — Ansel Elgort

When I was in lower school, I graduated from fourth grade, and the principal gave us a summer assignment to take a 30-minute reflection period every day. And, of course, there were no cell phones at the time. She said to just think. And that's lost. It doesn't exist anymore. Just imagine being on a couch and just thinking. — Ansel Elgort

Technology moves so fast and social media moves so fast because everyone wants the new thing, but also, everyone wants to be where their parents are not. Once the mom got a Facebook and a Twitter and an Instagram, I don't want to be there anymore. — Ansel Elgort

I don't want money to ever drive my career. I want my career to be driven by what I want to do in art. — Ansel Elgort

I think my parents raised me well. And I'm pretty straight edge. All my friends make fun of me for being straight edge. — Ansel Elgort

The club scene is terrible. — Ansel Elgort

Last night you dreamt of a room -
a room full of fish,
and a swimming pool
where you waded knee-deep
and hauled them all in

except for one, already dead,
a large bluefish wedged
into a corner, its back stiff.

You remember it later: its eye
like a button,
a button on another person's coat. — Talvikki Ansel

I want to encourage people. One of the things I do encourage people is that - that Internet is a place where we should share our ideas and be positive, not negative. — Ansel Elgort

Just because you live 20 years or 100 years doesn't make it less meaningful. They're both short amount of times. So all we can do is just live in that time, whatever time we're given. — Ansel Elgort

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. — Ansel Adams

Girls love it when you have some weird nerdy thing in your room. It makes you look less threatening, even though I'm, like, very threatening. I'm the most threatening guy ever. — Ansel Elgort

Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children ... let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money ... and once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price. — Ansel Adams

Parents can't monitor what you are doing on Snapchat. — Ansel Elgort

I'm not really too worried about what I'm gonna do next, because I just think of my career as, like, having sixty years ahead of me. — Ansel Elgort

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways. — 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 People magazine called me, I did the job on Ansel. I'm older than Ansel and he has to mind me. — Imogen Cunningham

I kept driving straight on toward what we called home and could not say aloud the words that were thrashing me, as if somehow by remaining silent I could keep the terrible thing from having occurred. — Russell Banks

The herculean task of a photographer is to capture a momentary frame as beautiful in reality, as it would be in a dream. — Ansel Adams

The stag's enormous head turned slightly - toward the wagon, toward the small window.
The Lord of the North.
So the people of Terrasen will always know how to find their way home, she'd once told Ansel as they lay under a blanket of stars and traced the constellation of the stag.
So they can look up at the sky, no matter where they are, and know Terrasen is forever with them. — Sarah J. Maas

I go to dinner with my friends, and we're like, 'Let's put our phones on airplane mode so we can really enjoy each other's company.' — Ansel Elgort

Sometimes I arrive just when God's ready to have somone click the shutter. — Ansel Adams

Black-and-white photography, which I was doing in the very early days, was essentially called art photography and usually consisted of landscapes by people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. But photographs by people like Adams didn't interest me. — William Eggleston

All art is the expression of one and the same thing- the relation of the spirit of man to the spirit of other men and to the world. — Ansel Adams

It's so sad, you get less starstruck when you start realizing that it's not a big deal. — Ansel Elgort

With 'Carrie,' I did, like, seven auditions. I'd never done a movie, so they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to ruin it. I don't blame them. — Ansel Elgort

The skies and land are so enormous, and the detail so precise and exquisite that wherever you are you are isolated in a glowing world between the macro and the micro. — Ansel Adams

You should see him with his shirt off."
Ansel rocks on his heels, sipping his drink. "Please continue as if I"m not here. This is fantastic. — Christina Lauren

I always wanted to be part of a movie that creates a different world. — Ansel Elgort

I went to Yosemite as an homage to Ansel Adams. I could never be Ansel Adams, but to know that's there for us - there's so much for us in this country. — Annie Leibovitz

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed. — Ansel Adams

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

I believe photography is a tool to express our positive assessment of the world. A tool to acquire ultimate happiness and belief. — Ansel Adams

Before you lose your children, you can talk about it-as a possibility, I mean [ ... ] But when the thing that you only imagined actually happens, you quickly discover that you can barely speak of it. Your story is jumbled and mumbled, out of sync and unfocused. At least that's how it has been for me. — Russell Banks

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

We all know the tragedy of the dustbowls, the cruel unforgivable erosions of the soil, the depletion of fish or game, and the shrinking of the noble forests. And we know that such catastrophes shrivel the spirit of the people ... The wilderness is pushed back, man is everywhere. Solitude, so vital to the individual man, is almost nowhere. — Ansel Adams

I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them. — Ansel Adams

The next time you pick up a camera think of it not as an inflexible and automated robot, but as a flexible instrument which you must understand to properly use. An electronic and optical miracle creates nothing on its own! Whatever beauty and excitement it can represent exist in your mind and spirit to begin with. — Ansel Adams

I don't want to only play the leading man for the rest of my career. — Ansel Elgort

The best picture is around the corner. Like prosperity. — Ansel Adams

I never felt fanboyish about acting, about actors, about movies. I'm a fanboy with music. — Ansel Elgort

If Ansel Adams gets a thousand dollars a print, I want ten thousand. — Paul Strand

I don't want to just fall back on the fact that I was on the cover of 'GQ' for being an actor. — Ansel Elgort

[ ... ] I could no longer believe even in life. Which meant that I had come to be the reverse, the opposite of a Christian. For me, now, the only reality is death. — Russell Banks

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

When you're crafting a character, it's good to have a lot of influences. — Ansel Elgort

I know that I am one with beauty and that my comrades are one. Let our souls be mountains, Let our spirits be stars, Let our hearts be worlds. — Ansel Adams

I grew up with Grace Coddington coming over to our house, like, all the time, but, like, she was just, like, the woman with the red hair. — Ansel Elgort

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