Quotes About Camera

It's a hard job to get the camera to see it like you see it. Sometimes you have it just the way you want it, and then you look in the camera and you don't have the balance. The main thing is to get the camera to see it the way you see it.

The actors feel very free. The actor, he doesn't need to think about where the camera is, he just has to focus on what he's doing and forget the camera. The camera is never in the perfect position, and I think this is what keeps this feeling of reality. The frame is not perfect.

For me, what was important was to record everything I saw around me, and to do this as methodically as possible. In these circumstances a good photograph is a picture that comes as close as possible to reality. But the camera never manages to record what your eyes see, or what you feel at the moment. The camera always creates a new reality.

Marilyn Monroe gave more to the still camera than any actress, any woman I've ever photographed; infinitely more patient, more demanding of herself and more comfortable in front of the camera than away from it.

When I got the camera on the shoulder, they give me a nickname. They call me 'the tripod' because I'm kind of short and kind of strong. So if I take the camera and I lock myself, you think that you're on a crane.

You should never use the camera to make your pictures. You use yourself, your experience to make the picture with the camera. Not the other way around.

I don't like people who are hypocritical, who pretend to be nice, particularly in show business when they're nice on camera, and then off camera they're absolutely appalling to the makeup people, or the waitress in a restaurant, you know? I don't like - I can't bear those kind of people. So I like people who are, you know, up front in your face.

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

Looking into my future, I don't always want to be in front of the camera. I want to be behind the camera and bring to life those family members of mine or people that I knew or the kids I grew up. I want people to know the different facets of black people, brown people, all people.

So the thing that's beautiful about the Rolleiflex is that I open the camera up from the top and put my face in and that the camera's all about composition and all about light.

The camera is objective. When it records a face it can't make any hierarchical decisions about a nose being more important than a cheek. The camera is not aware of what it is looking at. It just gets it all down.

Editing can alter the original meaning and context, and computers can alter the image itself. The camera can also be manipulated. At the very least, it must be turned in one direction - only one direction at a time ... Who chooses what direction to point the camera, and why?

[The small camera] taught me energy and decisiveness and immediacy ... The large camera taught me reverence, patience, and meditation.

I just feel that I enjoy the work more than I ever have... or just as much certainly... I enjoy making films behind the camera equally to making them in front of the camera on all those years. I just enjoy it, that's all. I've been lucky enough to work in a profession that I have really liked and so I figured I'd just continue until someone hits me over the head and says "get out".

What some highbrows call rapport is nothing more than a mild flirtation between photographer and the girl on the other side of the camera. Some models get so professional they can send hours flirting with the camera itself while the poor photographer is reduced to the role of spectator.

When I was an actor in some movies a long time ago, I was so curious about all the camera movements - why is the camera placed here, and why does it move like this? And why the set and the background, the color? It's a lot of questions for me to ask, because I was so interested, not only in acting, but also the whole process of filmmaking.

Photographs also show the way that the camera sees. It's not just me or you or anybody else. The camera does something that is different from our own setting.

So in terms of a large part of the job on our show specifically, what makes the show complex and interesting and funnier are the conversations about "Where's the camera?" and "How aware are the characters of the camera? Are the cameras hidden for this shot? Is it a spy shot from far away? Or is it really close and in their face, and they sort of have to play to it in an embarrassing situation?" There's a whole other level of questions and choices that come into play on our show that are not even a factor in anything else.

I think the theater work and the on-camera work feed off each other. My theater work has become more simple, and my on-camera work has become more energized or more spontaneous.

Being behind a camera, in front of the camera, is my own little deconstructionist niche.

As far as digital technology has come, there's still one thing that digital cameras won't do: give you perfect color every time. In fact, if they gave us perfect color 50% of the time, that would be incredible, but unfortunately every digital camera (and every scanner that captures traditional photos) sneaks in some kind of color cast in your image. Generally, it's a red cast, but depending on the camera, it could be blue. Either way, you can be pretty sure-there's a cast.

I enjoyed being at Jurassic Park, with Jeff Goldblum and Sir Richard Attenborough. It's funny, because Steven Spielberg would actually operate the camera sometimes. He'd consider the camera, and he'd be kind of looking at me. He actually shot a few of the things that I'm in, in that lab, with that long ash dangling off that cigarette. Hogging that fake cigarette. Because I had quit smoking, and he wanted to make sure I didn't go back, so he got me the worst-tasting fake cigarettes ever.

I'm trying to use the camera to get into people's heads. I use camera techniques a lot to articulate character.

At some level, you've got to have the ability to - especially in film and in front of the camera, you got to have the ability to drop into character and close off the entire crew and the camera and everything else.

I don't like to be in front of the camera - my place is behind the camera.

Before the days of video village a director should stand right next to the camera, look with his naked eye and if he sees something that is real to him, he'd look up at the [camera] operator and if he gives the look to indicate he'd seen it to, then you print and you'd move on.

When I walk with a camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer.

If I want a small take-everywhere camera, I prefer my iPhone 5, which has colors and tonal range superior to any DSLR or compact digital camera I've ever used at their default settings.

I want my fellow citizens to wise up and stop falling for [war]. I try with my limited access, I'm not getting into Kabul with a camera, they're not letting me get into Benghazi with a camera. I do what I can with my flimsy American passport and a visa. The photos are a bit more heavy from Southern Sudan and Haiti and Cuba.

This is the funny thing about Skype. No one is really looking into the camera. People always looking down because they're looking at the image. You wish the camera was there in the center.

I have produced all my music videos. Love to get behind the camera and get involved in the editing process.

When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously.

You can start a documentary with just a camera, as opposed to a fiction film where you need actors, a crew, a script, a lot more start-up resources. It may be self-perpetuating.

Photos should focus on your waist up, unless you have amazing legs. Then it's okay to include one or two full-body shots in your gallery. The majority of your photos should be closer up, highlighting your face. Don't stage a smile. Instead, try to laugh just before the shot is taken. Flirty smiles that don't look cheesy also work. Make eye contact with the camera. Aim to take most of your photos outdoors.

I've been a soldier, I've been a bunch of little girls, all sorts of roles that I would not have been able to be with on camera context because I just don't look the part.

The secret of photography is, the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler.

I'm a big believer in just using CGI to polish what you get on camera.

I remember like that scene with Pharrell where they're at the music video shoot, we have this on camera actually, Pharrell's confused because we weren't doing the script. We were doing all this improv and then Diddy says to him... Pharrell's like I don't understand what's going on and Diddy goes, "We do a lot of improv". (laughter) I remember being we just made him into a comedy nerd. We somehow turned Sean Combs into a comedy nerd, so.

When you're in front of the camera, for a small budget or a big budget movie, there's no difference.

I prefer working behind the camera.

I'm a visual filmmaker so the camera is a big part of my storytelling tool and it's something that I really rely on to tell a scene or create the suspense that I need and create the emotion of a scene or a sequence.

I worked on 'Sarah Connor' even longer than 'Firefly.' And I always remembered how generous everyone was to me when I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know the rules, and I didn't know camera angles, and I didn't know lighting.

When the camera starts to roll, there is something of death about it.

The documentary photographer aims his camera at the real world to record truthfulness. At the same time, he must strive for form, to devise effective ways of organizing and using the material. For content and form are interrelated. The problems presented by content and form must be so developed that the result is fundimentally [sic] true to the realities of life as we know it. The chief problem is to find a form that adequately represents the reality.

I love the work, I love being in front of the camera and working with actors and directors and creating something. For me, it's like learning everyday.

I really did feel like I was surrounded by family members. I didn't have a dad, and I remember there were all these guys - in the old days, there were no women, except a makeup artist or, occasionally, a script supervisor. So there were just guys who taught me how to, you know, whittle wood, or how to pull focus, and what the camera was doing. And if I was being bratty, they'd sit me down and tell me. There were lots of rules about not being late and making sure that you didn't spill anything. So it felt a little bit like I was in a family.

I've learned survival secrets from being on camera, and then translated them into everyday life.

Improvisational things about picture-making... learned from working with the small camera early on have served me well in being able to think quickly when making [portraits].