Sometimes there’s a unique picture whose composition possesses such vigor and richness and whose content so radiates outward from it that the single picture is a whole story in itself.

You cannot be sure in advance exactly how the situation, the scene, is going to unfold. You must stay with the scene, just in case the elements of the situation shoot off from the core again... Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes forever the precise and transitory instant. We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory.

The camera is in some ways a sketchbook drawn in time and space, and it is also an admirable instrument that seizes life just as it presents itself.

The flash destroys the secret network of relations that naturally exist between the attentive photographer and his subject. You do not thrash the waters before you start fishing.

If a good photo is cropped, even ever so slightly, the relative proportions, the play of proportions, are sure to be destroyed, and besides, it is highly unlikely that a badly composed shot will be saved by trying to frame it anew in the darkroom, cropping the negative under the enlarger: the integrity of the initial vision is lost.

Not since [Francisco de] Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths.

To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.

What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values.

To take photographs means to recognize -- simultaneously and within a fraction of a second -- both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.

The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.

The picture is good or not from the moment it was caught in the camera.

Inside movement there is one moment in which the elements are in balance. Photography must seize the importance of this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it.

All I care about these days is painting - photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.

I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap' life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

He [Elliot Erwitt] has achieved a miracle...working on a chain gang of commercial campaigns, and still offering a bouquet of stolen photos with a flavor, a smile from his deeper self.

We often hear of “camera angles” (that is, those made by a guy who throws himself flat on his stomach to obtain a cetain effect or style), but the only legitimate angles that exist are those of the geometry of the composition.

I hope that we don't ever see the day when ready-made photo system, which guarantees good photographic compostions in advance, go on the market.

I went to Marseille. A small allowance enabled me to get along, and I worked with enjoyment. I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to "trap" life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

One has to tiptoe lightly and steal up to one's quarry; you don't swish the water when you are fishing.
I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us.

You are asking me what makes a good picture. For me, it is the harmony between subject and form that leads each one of those elements to its maximum of expression and vigor.

Avoid making a commotion, just as you wouldn’t stir up the water before fishing. Don’t use a flash out of respect for the natural lighting, even when there isn’t any. If these rules aren’t followed, the photographer becomes unbearably obstrusive.

There’s a particular kind of painting that is no longer practiced, that of portraiture, and there are those who say that the discovery of photography is the cause. It does seem apt to credit photography with the abandonment by painters of this painterly form. A subject wearing a military coat, a cap, and sitting on a horse can discourage even the most well-schooled painter, who feels owerwhelmed by all the details of the costume. We, as photographers, are not bothered by all these dertails. Rather, we enjoy ourselves, because we can easily capture life in all its reality through our camera.

Street photography is an important documentation of our time. Some of the most significant images in any art medium in the last 150 years have been made in the street by people like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Diane Arbus and Robert Frank. If that’s discouraged, in the long term it will be a substantial loss.

As I photograph with my little Leica, I have the feeling that there is something so right about it: with one eye that is closed one looks within. With the other eye that is open one looks without.

The camera can be a machine gun, a warm kiss, a sketchbook. Shooting a camera is like saying, “Yes, yes, yes.” There is no “maybe.” All the “maybes” should go in the trash.

If the good Lord had wanted us to take photographs with a 6 by 6, he would have put eyes in our belly.

Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out.

Study the works of the greatest photographers, like Henri Cartier-Bresson and André Kertész. Try to travel to many parts of the world and understand what a diverse world we live in.

Pictures, regardless of how they are created and recreated, are intended to be looked at. This brings to the forefront not the technology of imaging, which of course is important, but rather what we might call the eyenology (seeing).

Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.

Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should? While we're working, we must be conscious of what we're doing. Sometimes we have the feeling that we've taken a great photo, and yet we continue to unfold. We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.

As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It is a way of life.

Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick. So, if you miss the picture, you've missed it. So what?

Cartier-Bresson says he cannot take portraits of actors because they pose.

As photojournalists we supply information to a world that is overwhelmed with preoccupations and full of people who need the company of images....We pass judgement on what we see, and this involves an enormous responsibility.

A photographer’s eye is perpetually evaluating. A photographer can bring coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter. He can modify perspectives by a slight bending of the knees. By placing the camera closer to or farther from the subject, he draws a detail. But he composes a picture in very nearly the same amount of time it takes to click the shutter, at the speed of a reflex action.

Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvellous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.

In Gene's(*) photographs there is something which throbs, something always tremulant. They are taken between the shirt and the skin. Anchored between the shirt and the skin – at the heart – his camera moves even by its passionate integrity.

Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. Success depends on the extent of one's general culture. one's set of values, one's clarity of mind one's vivacity. The thing to be feared most is the artificially contrived, the contrary to life.

I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff – being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you want get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.

This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography; composition should be a constant of preoccupation, being a simultaneous coalition – an organic coordination of visual elements.

As I immersed myself in the subject, I came across a statement by Henri Cartier-Bresson, explaining that with a camera the discovery of the external world simultaneously reveals the internal world. I found this prospect electrifying: it had to be the key to a meaningful life! (...) The industrialized nations are performing a slow genocide on the peoples of the world by the eviction of peasants from their land, the urbanization of society and the imposition of a uniform consumer culture... no need to weave, sing, dance or even talk when the latest soap hits the dish.

In photojournalistic reporting, inevitably, you’re an outsider.

In photography, the smallest thing can become a big subject, an insignificant human detail can become a leitmotiv. We see and we make seen as a witness to the world around us; the event, in its natural activity, generates an organic rhythm of forms.

It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist who does commissions for clients because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there’s nothing left of truth.