A good photograph is knowing where to stand.
Ansel Adams
2
A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.
Ansel Adams
3
A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.
Ansel Adams
4
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
Ansel Adams
5
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.
Ansel Adams
6
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
7
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.
Ansel Adams
8
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.
Ansel Adams
9
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.
Ansel Adams
10
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
Ansel Adams
11
Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.
Ansel Adams
12
The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.
Ansel Adams
13
The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance.
Ansel Adams
14
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
Ansel Adams
15
There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit.
Ansel Adams
16
There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.
Ansel Adams
17
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.
Ansel Adams
18
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.
Ansel Adams
19
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
20
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
Ansel Adams
21
Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.
Ansel Adams
