A photograph is not an accident–it is a concept. — Ansel Adams

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

Photograph not only what you see but also what you feel. — Ansel Adams

A good photograph is knowing where to stand. — Ansel Adams

A photograph is usually looked at–seldom looked into. — Ansel Adams

To the complaint, ‘There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer. — Ansel Adams

I can look at a fine art photograph and sometimes I can hear music. — Ansel Adams

A photograph is not an accident–is a concept. It exists at, or before, the moment of exposure of the negative. — Ansel Adams

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces. — Ansel Adams

If what I see in my mind excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. — Ansel Adams

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. — Ansel Adams

It is easy to take a photograph, but it is harder to make a masterpiece in photography than in any other art medium. — Ansel Adams

Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs. — Ansel Adams

If you have enough craft, you’ve done your homework and you’re practiced. You can then make the photograph you desire. — Ansel Adams

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words. — Ansel Adams

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

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. — 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

You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved. — Ansel Adams

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 — 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

The camera cannot, but the photographer can. — Ansel Adams

The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it! — Ansel Adams

It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument. — Ansel Adams

In a strict sense photography can never be abstract, for the camera is incapable of synthetic integration. — Ansel Adams

Knowing what I know now, any photographer worth his salt could make some beautiful things with pinhole cameras. — Ansel Adams

We make images to ‘honor what is greater and more interesting than we are. — Ansel Adams

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. — Ansel Adams

The craft of photography is the key to good images. — Ansel Adams

I expect to retire to a fine–grained heaven where the temperatures are always consistent, where the images slide before one’s eyes in a continual cascade of form and meaning. — Ansel Adams

I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop. — Ansel Adams

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

To visualize an image (in whole or in part) is to see clearly in the mind prior to exposure, a continuous projection from composing the image through the final print. — Ansel Adams

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. — Ansel Adams

I usually have an immediate recognition of the potential image, and I have found that too much concern about matters such as conventional composition may take the edge off the first inclusive reaction. — Ansel Adams

My last word s that it all depends on what you visualize. — Ansel Adams

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels… — Ansel Adams

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety. — Ansel Adams

With all art expression, when something is seen, it is a vivid experience, sudden, compelling, and inevitable. — Ansel Adams

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

All art is the expression of one and the same thing–the relation of the spirit of man to the spirit of other men and to the world. — Ansel Adams

Image quality is not the product of a machine, but of the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression. — Ansel Adams

I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us. — Ansel Adams

The [35mm] camera is for life and for people, the swift and intense moments of life. — Ansel Adams

I have often had a retrospective vision where everything in my past life seems to fall with significance into logical sequence. — Ansel Adams

I believe the approach of the artist and the approach of the environmentalist are fairly close in that both are, to a rather impressive degree, concerned with the affirmation of life. — Ansel Adams

Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum. — 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

I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is. — Ansel Adams