Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
Ansel AdamsLife 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 AdamsThe ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.
Ansel AdamsYou 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 AdamsI believe photography is a tool to express our positive assessment of the world. A tool to acquire ultimate happiness and belief.
Ansel AdamsI’m interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.
Ansel AdamsLet us leave a splendid legacy for our children...let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money...and once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.
Ansel AdamsThe dismal half-baked images of the average "reportage" and "documentary" photography are self dammning... the slick manner, the slightly obscure significance, the esoteric fear of simple beauty for its own sake - I am deeply concerned with these manifestations of decay. Gene Smith's work validates my most vigorous convictions that if the documentary photographs is to be truly effective it must contain elements of art, intensity, fine craft and spirituality. All these his work contains and we may turn to his work with gratitude, appreciation and great respect.
Ansel AdamsKnowing what I know now, any photographer worth his salt could make some beautiful things with pinhole cameras.
Ansel AdamsI 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.
Ansel AdamsBlack and white photography is truly quite a 'departure from reality', and the transition from one aspect of visual magic to another was not as complete as many imagine.
Ansel AdamsAll art is a vision penetrating the illusions of reality, and photography is one form of this vision and revelation.
Ansel AdamsThe negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.
Ansel AdamsI think photography is being recognized and collected. Its values have certainly gone up and continue to go up.
Ansel AdamsPhotographers and artists contribute a lot to the world and have a right to exist in relative security and comfort.
Ansel AdamsThe piano has eighty-eight keys, and you have to be able to play all of them. And the range of white to black is analogous to the eighty-eight keys and you have to be able to play all eighty-eight keys in that palette from white to black.
Ansel AdamsThe technique of 35mm photography appears simple. One is beguiled by the quick viewing and operation, and by the very questionable inclination to make many pictures with the hope that some will be good.
Ansel AdamsWith all art expression, when something is seen, it is a vivid experience, sudden, compelling, and inevitable.
Ansel AdamsI 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 AdamsTo the vast majority of people a photograph is an image of something within their direct experience: a more-or-less factual reality. It is difficult for them to realize that the photograph can be the source of experience, as well as the reflection of spiritual awareness of the world and of self.
Ansel AdamsThe disciples are drawn to the high altars with magnetic certainty, knowing that a great Presence hovers over the ranges ... You were within the portals of the temple ... to enter the wilderness and seek, in the primal patterns of nature, a magical union with beauty.
Ansel AdamsEmphasis on technique is justified only so far as it will simplify and clarify the statement of the photographer's concept.
Ansel AdamsI know some photographs that are extraodrinary in their power and conviction, but it is difficult in photography to overcome the superficial power or subject; the concept and statement must be quite convincing in themselves to win over a dramatic and compelling subject situation.
Ansel AdamsThe artist and the photographer seek the mysteries and the adventure of experience in nature.
Ansel AdamsI believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful - an endless prospect of magic and wonder.
Ansel AdamsYosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.
Ansel AdamsWe were in the shadow of the mountains, the light was cool and quiet and no wind was stirring. The aspen trunks were slightly greenish and the leaves were a vibrant yellow.
Ansel Adams...one sees differently with color photography than black-and-white... in short, visualization must be modified by the specific nature of the equipment and materials being used.
Ansel AdamsNo matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied - it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.
Ansel AdamsI am always surprised when I see several cameras, a gaggle on lenses, filters, meters, et cetera, rattling around in a soft bag with a complement of refuse and dust. Sometimes the professional is the worst offender!
Ansel AdamsPhotography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
Ansel AdamsNo 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 AdamsI've always thought photography was an art form, but it had very low appreciation in the beginning, except for some Europeans, and of course Stieglitz. Stieglitz always considered photography to be an art form and is the "father" of the creative concepts of the twentieth century.
Ansel AdamsPhotography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
Ansel AdamsI know that I am one with beauty and that my comrades are one. Let our souls be mountains, Let our spirits be stars, Let our hearts be worlds.
Ansel AdamsThe great rocks of Yosemite, expressing qualities of timeless yet intimate grandeur, are the most compelling formations of their kind. We should not casually pass them by, for they are the very heart of the earth speaking to us.
Ansel Adams