Monday, July 28, 2025

How to See Without a Camera

The camera is an instrument
that teaches people how to see
without a camera.

Dorothea Lange

To Fall in Love

A thing that you see in my pictures is
that I was not afraid to fall in love
with these people.

Annie Leibovitz

What We Are

There is only you and your camera.
The limitations in your photography
are in yourself, for what we see is
what we are.

Ernst Haas

A Love Affair with Life

Photography
is a love affair
with life.

Burk Uzzle

The True Lens

Look and think before opening the shutter.
The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.

Yousuf Karsh

Not Close Enough

If your pictures aren't good enough,
you aren't close enough.

Robert Capa

My Heart Sings

Through photography
my heart sings what I feel.

Burk Uzzle


The Soul Will Drift Up

If you wait, people will forget your camera,
and the soul will drift up into view.

Steve McCurry

Why Follow the Rules?

I didn't write the rules,
why should I follow them?

W. Eugene Smith

Friday, July 25, 2025

Subject is Everywhere

There is a subject in all that takes place
in the world as well as in our personal universe.
We cannot negate subject. It is everywhere.
In photography, the smallest thing can be
the greatest subject. The little human detail
can become a leitmotif.

Henri Cartier-Bresson


Thursday, July 24, 2025

It's a Wheel

Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever.
We have to make room for other people.
It's a wheel. You get on, you have to go the end
and then somebody else takes their place.
Now, I'm going to close and quickly run next door
to do my work.

Vivian Maier

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Paying Attention

Photography is all about
paying attention.

Joel Meyerowitz

It's a Way of Life

To take a photograph
is to align the head,
the eye, and the heart.
It's a way of life.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Resolve It as Art

I like the feeling of being able
to confront an experience
and resolve it as art.

Eudora Welty

Monday, July 21, 2025

Stare, Pry, Listen, Eavesdrop

Stare. It is the way to
educate your eye, and more.
Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.
Die knowing something.
You are not here long.

Walker Evans

Seeing Things Differently

Art is not beauty.
Art is seeing things differently.

Virginia Woolf

Dancing in the Perceived Gap

True art is an epiphany, an enlightening spark
dancing in the perceived gap between ourselves
and everything else.

Duane Preble

Seeing is Creative

Seeing is
a creative process.

Duane Preble

Before You Can Really Live

You have to die a few times
before you can really live.

Charles Bukowski

What Education Is

Education is the ability to
listen to almost anything
without losing your temper
or your self-confidence.

Robert Frost

What You Do

You are what you do, not
what you say you will do.

Carl Jung

Use Your Heart

You cannot find your soul with your mind.
You must use your heart.

Gary Zukav

A Revolutionary Act

If something inside you is real,
we will probably find it interesting,
and it will probably be universal.
So you must risk placing real emotion
at the center of your work.
Write straight into the emotional center of things.
Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked.
Tell the truth as you understand it.
If you're a writer, you have
a moral obligation to do this.
And it is a revolutionary act -
truth is always subversive.

Anne Lamott

Until I Make It

The place in which I'll fit
will not exist until I make it.

James Baldwin

Back to Heaven and Creativity

Fearless creativity is born out of peace.
Each of us creates solely out of a clear mind,
a free-flowing mind, creativity just flowing non-stop.
We don't need pain to be creative.
So, how do you get back to heaven?

Byron Katie


A Rebel Says No

What is a rebel?
A man who says no.

Albert Camus

Communicating What's Important to You

Loneliness does not come from
having no people around you,
but from being unable to communicate
the things that seem important to you.

Carl Jung

Where Your Life Is

So, I have a little word:
"Follow your bliss."
The bliss is the message
of God to yourself.
That's where your life is.

Joseph Campbell

Friday, July 18, 2025

Who Says Words with My Mouth

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I
supposed to be doing? I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I am sure of that
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird
from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off, but
who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who look out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
Shams Tabriz, if you would show your face to me again,
I could flee the imposition of this life.

Rumi

Maybe Nothing is Really True

I am always looking outside, trying
to say something that is true.
But maybe nothing is really true.
Except what's out there.
And what's out there is
constantly changing.

Robert Frank

Not a Matter of Indifference

Above all, life for a photographer
cannot be a matter of indifference.

Robert Frank

Read a Line Twice

When people look at my pictures
I want them to feel the way they do
when they want to read a line
of a poem twice.

Robert Frank

Thursday, July 17, 2025

Merely in Disguise

Another belief of mine:
that everyone else my age
is an adult, whereas 
I am merely in disguise.

Margaret Atwood

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

A Funny Mixture

Street photographers tend to be gregarious
in the sense that they can go out on the street
and they're comfortable being among people.
But, they're also a funny mixture of solitaries
at the same time as being gregarious.
You observe, and you embrace, and you take in,
but you stay back, and you try to stay invisible.

Joel Meyerowitz

Monday, July 14, 2025

Life Will Give You Pictures

You just have to live and
life will give you pictures.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Continually Vanishing

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.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Life Itself Offers You

Your eye must see a composition or
an expression that life itself offers you,
and you must know with intuition
when to click the camera.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

The Moment and Its Eternity

Photography is, for me
a spontaneous impulse
coming from an ever-attentive eye
which captures the moment and
its eternity.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Your Worst Photographs

Your first 10,000 photographs
are your worst.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Friday, July 11, 2025

Mystery of the Moment

To the mind there is such a thing as news,
whereas to the inner knowing, it is all
in the middle of its happening.
To doubters, this is pain.
To believers, it's gospel.
To the lover and the visionary,
it is life as it's being lived.

Rumi

Finding No Home

Whoever wants music instead of noise,
joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold,
creative work instead of business,
passion instead of foolery, finds no home
in this trivial world of ours.

Hermann Hesse

Life is a Play

Hope for the best.
Expect the worst.
Life is a play.
We're unrehearsed.

Mel Brooks

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Reviving Your Soul

Sit quietly and listen for a voice
that will say, Be more silent.
As that happens, your soul starts to revive.

Rumi

Instructions for Living

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver

Nothing's More Interesting

Photograph the world as it is.
Nothing's more interesting
than reality.

Mary Ellen Mark

The Lucky Ones

Flowers are sweet.
They have short, beatific lives.
They offer much pleasure.
There is nothing in
the world that can be
said against them.
Sad, isn't it, that all they can
kiss is the air. Yes, yes!
We are the lucky ones.

Mary Oliver

Beauty in Everything

There is beauty in everything.
Just not everybody sees it.

Andy Warhol

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

A Bourgeois Concept

Sharpness
is a bourgeois
concept.

Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Do it!

The principle to pick up a camera
should always be something along
the lines of curiosity, to have fun,
because you love photography,
and never for recognition.
Because fame, however it might
meet you in life, should never be
a means but a consequence of your work.
And your work, that should be based
on your vision. And if you don't like
the word vision, let's use perspective
or how you see the world.
You might take inspiration from others
but should never compare yourself to others.
And if you feel like taking a picture of a bin,
do it!

Tatiana Hopper (inspired by Vivian Maier)

Another Way

Painting is just another way
of keeping a diary.

Pablo Picasso

Washing the Soul

Art washes away
from the soul
the dust of
everyday life.

Pablo Picasso

The Quality of a Painter

The quality of a painter depends on
how much of the past he carries with him.

Pablo Picasso

Monday, July 7, 2025

Some Kind of Spy

I'm some kind
of spy.

Vivian Maier 

One Little Spark

You're only given
one little spark
of madness. You
mustn't lose it.

Robin Williams

Aligning Eye and Heart

To take a photograph
is to align the eye
and the heart.

Henri Cartier-Bresson