Sam Abell Quotes

Quotes about:

• My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Photographer, Best Work

  48 Copy quote

• It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Use, Littles

  33 Copy quote

• Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Art, Desire

  20 Copy quote

• That's who comes to my workshops. I jokingly tell my students that the class could be called "Your photographs: Better."

  Sam Abell

  Class, Students, Photograph

  Source: aphotoeditor.com

  4 Copy quote

• Essentially what photography is is life lit up.

  Sam Abell

  Inspirational, Photography, Photographer

  17 Copy quote

• We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we want to see and make.

  Sam Abell

  Moving, People, Doe

  16 Copy quote

• "You know you are seeing such a photograph if you say to yourself, "I could have taken that picture. I've seen such a scene before, but never like that." It is the kind of photography that relies for its strengths not on special equipment or effects but on the intensity of the photographer's seeing. It is the kind of photography in which the raw materials-light, space, and shape-are arranged in a meaningful and even universal way that gives grace to ordinary objects."

  Sam Abell

  Meaningful, Photography, Taken

  10 Copy quote

• What I'm interested in is modern American history. I'm taken with the changes that have occurred in America in my lifetime.

  Sam Abell

  Taken, America, Lifetime

  Source: aphotoeditor.com

  4 Copy quote

• Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest - a distant horizon, a moment of light, a held expression.

  Sam Abell

  Light, Expression, Horizon

  11 Copy quote

• But there is more to a fine photograph than information. We are also seeking to present an image that arouses the curiosity of the viewer or that, best of all, provokes the viewer to think-to ask a question or simply to gaze in thoughtful wonder. We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we want to see and make. It is the kind of picture that makes you want to pick up your own camera again and go to work.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Moving, Thoughtful

  10 Copy quote

• My first priority when taking pictures is to achieve clarity. A good documentary photograph transmits the information of the situation with the utmost fidelity; achieving it means understanding the nuances of lighting and composition, and also remembering to keep the lenses clean and the cameras steady.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Mean, Priorities

  12 Copy quote

• This might seem off the track, but an interesting thing to me that others could talk about better than I, but one of the growth areas in photographic education has been the so-called slow photography.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Track, Interesting

  Source: aphotoeditor.com

  4 Copy quote

• Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Photographer, Deny

  9 Copy quote

• How the visual world appears is important to me. I'm always aware of the light. I'm always aware of what I would call the 'deep composition.' Photography in the field is a process of creation, of thought and technique. But ultimately, it's an act of imaginatively seeing from within yourself.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Light, Important

  10 Copy quote

• One of the things that I most believe in is the compose and wait philosophy of photography. It’s a very satisfying, almost spiritual way to photograph. Life isn't’ knocking you around, life isn't controlling you. You have picked your place, you’ve picked your scene, you’ve picked your light, you’ve done all the decision making and you are waiting for the moment to come to you.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Spiritual, Philosophy

  7 Copy quote

• Exotic novelty. My statement to [people] is always, well, set this picture in your home town, is it still an interesting picture? Or is it just exotic? Would I care about this same picture minus its exoticism?

  Sam Abell

  Home, People, Interesting

  Source: dougplummer.blogs.com

  4 Copy quote

• I wanted life to be episodic. I wanted to be a magazine photographer and I was willing to do what it took to become that.

  Sam Abell

  Magazines, Photographer, Wanted

  7 Copy quote

• A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Mistake, Mad

  10 Copy quote

• There isn't an aspect of book creation I don't enjoy, and there has always been a book in my life to dream about or work on.

  Sam Abell

  Dream, Book, Photographer

  "A Life in Photos: Q&A with Sam Abell". Interview with Jenny Wells, uknow.uky.edu. July 20, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

• I will just say, appropriation is an intellectual idea until it happens to you. It's a philosophy, and it's got its own intellectual framework. Then there's what happens when it's your photograph. Then it's personal, and that's all I'll say.

  Sam Abell

  Philosophy, Ideas, Intellectual

  Source: aphotoeditor.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I've always thought the best place for my photographs was inside books of my own creation.

  Sam Abell

  Book, Thinking, Stories

  "A Life in Photos: Q&A with Sam Abell". Interview with Jenny Wells, uknow.uky.edu. July 20, 2012.

  8 Copy quote

• People say to me, "Who's your favorite kind of photographer?" Or "Who would be your favorite photographer to have in a workshop?"
  And I always say, "My Dad."

  Sam Abell

  Dad, People, Would Be

  Source: aphotoeditor.com

  5 Copy quote

• The best lesson I was given is that all of life teaches, especially if we have that expectation.

  Sam Abell

  Expectations, Lessons, Photographer

  "A Life in Photos: Q&A with Sam Abell". Interview with Jenny Wells, uknow.uky.edu. July 20, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• In almost every photograph I have ever made, there is something I would do to complete it. I take that to be the spirit hole or the deliberate mistake that's in a Navajo rug to not be godlike, but to be human.

  Sam Abell

  Mistake, Spirit, Photographer

  4 Copy quote

• My father taught me photography. It was his hobby, and we had a small darkroom in the fruit cellar of our basement. It was the kind of makeshift darkroom that was only dark at night.

  Sam Abell

  Photography, Father, Dark

  "A Life in Photos: Q&A with Sam Abell". Interview with Jenny Wells, uknow.uky.edu. July 20, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

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