Ansel Adams

I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term-meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching-there would be a vast improvement in total output.

The term 'serious photographer' is indeed overused these days, but I believe it to be properly applied to one who is a student of the craft with a willingness to learn and dedication to the ethics of his profession.

Making a print is a very positive act: the positive act of progress.

I believe the approach of the photographer should be to make a print that fully and objectively represents his vision, and that this procedure is a matter of personal choice.

The 'machine-gun' approach to photography - by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good - is fatal to serious results.

Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - to inhibit time, to stop it, then restart it.

Millions of interesting people are born every year, but they don't all get a chance to make their mark.

The whole world is in a terrible mess, and I don't think we are going to get out of it easily.

I tried to find the purity of the landscape, the essence of the place.

One of the reasons I became a photographer was to have an excuse to go into the wilderness.

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you frame in your camera is not only what you see, but what you feel.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

A great photograph is one that fully achieves its aim, and in its creation there is a sense of inevitability.

I am seldom interested in getting 'the picture', sometimes I only want to make one.

The effort to see things without distortion takes something really out of the heart.

Photography's ability to record the world is unparalleled, but its power to interpret is infinite.

We all move on this earth. The life of man is like a shadow.

The grandest of lives is only a series of small moments.

Art is both the taking and giving of beauty; the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit.