Quotes & Sayings About Professional Photography

Every photograph that is made whether by one who considers himself a professional, or by the tourist who points his snapshot camera and pushes a button, is a response to the exterior world, to something perceived outside himself by the person who operates the camera. — Eliot Porter

Because English has so many words of foreign origin, and words that look the same but mean something different depending on their context, and words that are in flux, opening and closing like flowers in time-lapse photography, the human element is especially important if we are to stay on top of the computers, which, in their determination to do our job for us, make decisions so subversive that even professional wordsmiths are taken by surprise. — Mary Norris

I am a professional photographer by trade and an amateur photographer by vocation. — Elliot Erwitt

Let me here call attention to one of the most universally popular mistakes that have to do with photography - that of classing supposedly excellent work as professional, and using the term amateur to convey the idea of immature productions and to excuse atrociously poor photographs. — Alfred Stieglitz

I am always surprised when I see several cameras, a gaggle on lenses, filters, meters, et cetera, rattling around in a soft bag with a complement of refuse and dust. Sometimes the professional is the worst offender! — Ansel Adams

Stay in Latin America, learn photography, and make all your professional mistakes in Argentina," he said, "because if you make one mistake in New York, no one will give you a second chance. — Lynsey Addario

Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it my be. — Edward Weston

There are thousands of people across the country taking photography courses. They'll never be professional photographers. They just want to understand what the photographic process is all about. — Brent Schlender

It pleases me to take amateur photographs of my garden, and it pleases my garden to make my photographs look professional. — Robert Breault

By temperament I am not unduly excitable and certainly not trigger-happy. I think twice before I shoot and very often do not shoot at all. By professional standards I do not waste a lot of film; but by the standards of many of my colleagues I probably miss quite a few of my opportunities. Still, the things I am after are not in a hurry as a rule. — Bill Brandt

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

For this very reason I refuse all the tricks of the trade and professional virtuosity which could make me betray my career. As soon as I find a subject which interests me, I leave it to the lens to record it truthfully. Look at the reporters and at the amateur photographer! They both have only one goal; to record a memory or a document. And that is pure photography. — Andre Kertesz

I feel very lucky. I don't know what else there has to be. I'm happy, as corny as it sounds, to be living in a place where it's easy to live, easy to drive to the airport, easy to go pick up something at the supermarket and to have a circle of friends. Those were my goals in 1998, not to be queen of photography but to make a cultural adjustment to the West. And those are still more important goals to me than professional ones right now. — Andrea Modica

Becoming a professional artist takes talent and perseverance, even more so when the field is photography. — Clyde Butcher

What I am or am not wearing does not correlate with my competency as a professional, a mother, or a feminist role model. My clothes don't define me and neither does my nakedness. I define me. — Miya Yamanouchi

Any photographer worth his/her salt - that is, any photographer of professional caliber, in control of the craft, regardless of imagistic bent - can make virtually anything look good. Which means, of course, that she or he can make virtually anything look bad - or look just about any way at all. After all, that is the real work of photography: making things look, deciding how a thing is to appear in the image. — A. D. Coleman

Photography is a hobby born out of my time in undergrad at USC. It is more of a pleasurable hobby, a stress reliever. I don't consider it a professional endeavor like acting or directing. — Lee Thompson Young

Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur. — Alfred Eisenstaedt

Photography belongs to a fraternity of its own. I was young and enthusiastic and wanted to take good pictures to show the other photographers. That, and the professional pride of convincing an editor that I was the man to go somewhere, were the most important things to me. — Don McCullin

Usually the amateur is defined as an immature state of the artist: someone who cannot - or will not - achieve the mastery of a profession. But in the field of photographic practice, it is the amateur, on the contrary, who is the assumption of the professional: for it is he who stands closer to the (i)noeme(i) of Photography. — Roland Barthes