Jay Maisel Quotes

Sometimes without shooting a picture germinates in your head. Other times, you keep taking pictures of the same thing and watch the images mature and grow.

The awareness of the quality of space in out photos is akin to our awareness of the very air in our photos, the atmosphere that pervades every square inch of our image and yet is often invisible to the photographer.

The composition is already there, you just need to crop it

As people, we love pattern. But interrupted pattern is more interesting.

You can't just turn on when something happens, you have to be turned on all the time. Then things happen.

When finding the right angle for a shot...'Move your ass.'

If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you're not out there, you'll only hear about it.

If the light is great in front of you, you should turn around and see what it is doing behind you.

One color alone means nothing. I acts as in a vacuum, with no other colors to relate to. It is only when colors relate to other colors that the fun begins.

Light gesture and color of the key compliments of any photograph. Light and color are obvious, but it is just her that is the most important. There is gesture in everything. It's up to you to find a gesture that is most telling.

All these factors are only valuable if you're curious. But in any case, the more knowledge you have, the more things are open and available to you.

I don't see light as something that falls, but as a positive force.

Try to go out empty and let your images fill you up.

Always carry a camera, it's tough to shoot a picture without one.

It's a lot easier to take pictures if you always have the camera with you.

If you want to make more interesting pictures, become a more interesting person.

If you don't have a camera, the best thing you can do is describe how great it looked.

The best camera is the one you have with you.

You have to have a lot of 'overage' so that your failures aren't the only thing you come home with. You've got to have a lot of things that were magnificent failures, but you want some magnificent successes.

What you're shooting at doesn't matter, the real question is: 'Does it give you joy?'

If you're not shooting in the right direction, it doesn't matter how well you're shooting.

We have always wanted to find the 'it-ness' of anything we shoot. We want to get as deep into the subject as we can.

The whole world is there for you. Gifts will happen, but only if you are patient with life itself, the shooting process, and your own limitations.

You have to pick the right tool for the point you're trying to make and there is no one solution.

You sort of have to be always aware, even when you're not thinking of shooting. That's when the best stuff happens.

It's my obligation to take out all the 'wrong' pictures.

Pain is not a conduit to art or joy

If you're not your own severest critic, you are your own worst enemy.

Color is seductive. It changes as it interacts with other colors, it changes because of the light falling upon it, and it changes as it becomes larger in size.

You cannot accurately remember color.

Gesture is not always action.

As you see something that yo want to shot and it's bearing down on you, it's important to start framing long before the subject gets close to you. The light will reveal itself possibly long before you want to take the image, but you have to wait until the picture comes to you, and if you've been anticipating carefully when the subject will be in position, the background will have been figured out in advance.

You have to let the past successes go, or you'll never be able to see anew.

You need minimum color for maximum effect.

... there's one of the great lies of all times, that computers save time. They don't. They're time suckers. So, I'm trying not to get involved in the Photoshop.

I take pictures, and they are there for the taking. I'll tell you a quote that I have always thought about. Arthur Miller said, I try to create the poem from the evidence.

If you're just going to meet consumer or clients' demands, you might as well be a plumber - the work will be more frequently available.

Photography is an act of love.

Had I not been told to look, I would have quite, ignorant of what was really there, because I had 'made plans' and was wearing visual and emotional blinders that limited my perceptions and my vision.

We don't experience light, color, and gesture in a vacuum. We experience it in contexts.