Ansel Adams

Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you and trust to your own reactions and convictions.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.

Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.

Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.

The only things in my life that compatibly exist with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.

Notebook. No photographer should be without one!

A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.

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.

I am probably afraid that some spectator will not understand my photography - therefore I proceed to make it really less understandable by writing defensibly about it.

Autumn Moon the High Sierra from Glacier Point

The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score and the print the performance.

There are no rules for good photographs there are only good photographs.

It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

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.

Not everybody trusts paintings, but people believe photographs.

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.

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.

The best master printer

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.

When words become unclear I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate I shall be content with silence.

In some photographs the essence of light and space dominate, in others the substance of rock and wood and the luminous insistence of growing things...It is my intention to present-through the medium of photography-intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to spectators...

No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive create or produce but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves their perceptions and emotions and to build confidence in the creative spirit.

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

Yosemite Valley to me is always a sunrise a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.

I never know in advance what I will photograph ... I go out into the world and hope I will come across something that imperatively interests me. I am addicted to the found object. I have no doubt that I will continue to make photographs till my last breath.

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.

Some photographers take reality...and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.

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 sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

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.

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment.

I tried to keep both arts alive but the camera won. I found that while the camera does not express the soul perhaps a photograph can!

No matter how sophisticated you may be a large granite mountain cannot be denied - it speaks in silence to the very core of your being

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.

There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.

You don't take a photograph you make it.

A true photograph need not be explained nor can it be contained in words.

Photography as a powerful medium of expression and communications offers an infinite variety of perception interpretation and execution.

Our lives at times seem a study in contrast... love & hate birth & death right & wrong... everything seen in absolutes of black & white. Too often we are not aware that it is the shades of grey that add depth & meaning to the starkness of those extremes.

We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium.

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels in the deepest sense about what is being photographed.

Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.

Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and the wonder surrounding him.

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.