Elliott Erwitt Quotes

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.

Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.

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.

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

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

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.

Dogs don't mind being photographed in compromising situations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A picture should be looked at - not talked about.

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.

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

Quality ... has to do with intention.

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

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.

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.

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.

Do what the client wants, not what you want.

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

Most photographers work best alone, myself included.

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.

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.

My 'work' is about seeing not about ideas.

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.

You don't study photography, you do it

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.

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

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

Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.

Photography is simply a function of noticing things.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.'

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.

I'll always be an amateur photographer.

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

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

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.

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

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

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