Word of advice from famous photographers

I came across the following quotations by three famous photographers.

1. “By observation and study, you can learn the technique, but you must reach inside yourself to find the emotion, the essential element for a photograph to make a difference.” - Anne Geddes

2. “I’m looking for the unexpected. I’m looking for things I’ve never seen before.” - Robert Mapplethorpe

3. “Photograph is a recording of an emotional situation. 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

Emotion, excitement, and the unexpected - the above mentioned photography legends put their heart into photography. That is what makes their photographs especially good. Although these photographers are considered fine art photographers, their quotations surely apply to any type of photography, including stock. In fact, the best stock photos are have an emotion attached to them.

An egg for instance. How can an interesting image be captured with an egg? Take a look.

Egg wrench
“Egg and Wrench”		 Golden egg nest
“Golden Nest Egg”

Both by Jerry Jones.

These images are conceptual. The photographer had an idea and a vision that was nicely carried out.

Let the quotations of famous photographers inspire you to look at your image subjects with a different perspective because the egg is fragile next to the wrench, and the same egg is very valuable when its gold!

This entry was posted on December 12, 2007 at 4:06 am and is filed under Home-school. Tagged: , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Word of advice from famous photographers”

  1. Margie Says:
    December 16, 2007 at 4:29 am

    I found this to be very helpful. I suppose the only problem is that nature and the beauty around us is what moves the spirit to capture and preserve those moments.
    If you say there are too many sunsets, then that is what moves the soul.
    To photograph something because it may have monetary value, is difficult, because it doesn’t involve the spirit and soul, it involves calculations of monetary worth instead.
    That is simply my opinion, and I’m new at this, so please allow room for error.
    Thank you.

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