Top 30 Ansel Adams Quotes

Words matter. These are the best Ansel Adams Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communica

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
Ansel Adams
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.
Ansel Adams
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.
Ansel Adams
Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.
Ansel Adams
Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.
Ansel Adams
There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.
Ansel Adams
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.
Ansel Adams
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
Ansel Adams
There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.
Ansel Adams
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!
Ansel Adams
Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.
Ansel Adams
Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.
Ansel Adams
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
Ansel Adams
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.
Ansel Adams
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
Ansel Adams
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
Ansel Adams
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.
Ansel Adams
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
Ansel Adams
A good photograph is knowing where to stand.
Ansel Adams
A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looked into.
Ansel Adams
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
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.
Ansel Adams
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.
Ansel Adams
You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
Ansel Adams
A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.
Ansel Adams
The only things in my life that compatibly exists with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.
Ansel Adams
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
Ansel Adams
The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.
Ansel Adams
It is my intention to present – through the medium of photography – intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.
Ansel Adams
A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
Ansel Adams