I have gathered here words that spoke to me – words that helped me put something in order, name something, think differently, find inspiration, understand, add something that was missing, confirm what I already felt, or bring out the essence of what I myself think – and feel – about photographing and photography.
These are sentences that touch on something important. They are about the art of seeing.
But not only.
Because the photography I create and write about does not exist, for me, separately from art, nature, light – including the light within us – and growth. It is inseparable from creating, mindfulness, goodness, gratitude, feeling – and ultimately, from life itself.
I have collected these aphorisms over many years. They appeared in books, conversations, articles, blogs, exhibitions, and in my own notes, written down and saved in different folders and places. I have always liked stopping at sentences that touch on something important.
Among these words are also those that are close to me in the context of art therapy – PhotoTherapy. They speak about the importance of images, creating, observing and experiencing, and about the ways in which contact with art can support a person, their emotional wellbeing and personal growth.
I gathered them here for you – and for myself as well.
These words deserve to be noticed, and to be returned to.
This collection is also a kind of extension of my intention and of what I talk about through my own photographs. Some of these quotes have already appeared here and there in my writing, so perhaps you have already come across them. Here, I have gathered them together.
I also think that when you read them, they may feel consistent with what I talk about through my own images and texts.
I thought this would be an easy post to write. It turned out to be incredibly time-consuming – and to my surprise – also very emotional. Going through so many words, images and thoughts, choosing, checking sources and putting them together… became a process in itself.
If you have a moment and feel like pausing with these words and images, this may be a good place for your own reflection – and perhaps also the beginning of your own personal growth and photo-therapeutic process 🙂 .
So, I invite you to read – and to stop for a while with the words that move something in you.
For me, these words are a little like poetry for the soul.
Word and image.
“All photographs are self-portraits.“
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“The heart and the mind are the true lens of the camera. Light is our language.”
– Yousuf Karsh
(Armenian-Canadian portrait photographer)
“Photography helps people to see”
– Berenice Abbott
(American photographer and science educator)
“The camera is first a means of self-discovery and a means of self-growth. The artist has one thing to say – himself.“
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don’t see.“
– Emmet Gowin
(American photographer and educator)
“When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously.“
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
„Photography gives you the opportunity to use your sensibility and everything you are to say something about and be part of the world around you. In this way, you might discover who you are, and with a little luck, you might discover something much larger than yourself.”
– Peter Lindbergh
(German fashion photographer and filmmaker)
“Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees.”
– Paul Strand
(American photographer and filmmaker)
„The camera always points both ways. In expressing your subject, you also express yourself.”
– Freeman Patterson
(Canadian photographer and writer)
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
– Dorothea Lange
(American documentary photographer)
“The camera is not only a recorder, it is a passport into the interior.”
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”
– Don McCullin
(British photojournalist and war photographer)
“As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
(French photographer and pioneer photojournalist)
“See with your eyes, photograph with your heart.”
– David duChemin
(Canadian photographer and author)
“Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
– Elliott Erwitt
(American photographer and documentary filmmaker)
“When I photograph, with my open eye I look at the world, and with my closed eye I look within myself.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
(French photographer and pioneer photojournalist)
“The photographer develops a selective, acute seeing eye by looking sharply at the world.”
– Berenice Abbott
(American documentary photographer)
„Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.”
– W. Eugene Smith
(American photojournalist and essayist)
„You don’t take a photograph, you make it. 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
(American photographer and environmentalist)
„Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.”
– Imogen Cunningham
(American photographer and botanical artist)
„Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.”
– George Eastman
(American entrepreneur and photography pioneer)
„Only photography has been able to divide human life into a series of moments, each of them has the value of a complete existence.”
– Eadweard Muybridge
(English photographer and motion pioneer)
„When a moment in front of me appears to be particularly special, whether it be by beauty or experience, I capture it. I usually find a reason to justify taking that photo – symmetry, color, or contrast – and it’s my hope that my photography sheds light onto what I see and do on a daily basis.”
– Connor Franta
(American YouTuber, author and photographer)
“My interest in photography is not to capture an image I see or even have in my mind, but to explore the potential of moments I can only begin to imagine.”
– Lois Greenfield
(American photographer and dance chronicler)
“Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, cinema.”
– David Lynch
(American filmmaker, painter, and photographer)
“One advantage of photography is that it’s visual and can transcend language.”
– Lisa Krystyna
(American humanitarian photographer and activist)
“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.”
– Arnold Newman
(American photographer and portrait pioneer)
“Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.”
– Garry Winogrand
(American street photographer and photojournalist)
“The camera has always been a guide, and it’s allowed me to see things and focus on things that maybe an average person wouldn’t even notice.”
– Don Chadwick
(American furniture and industrial designer)
“To take photographs means to recognize – simultaneously and within a fraction of a second – both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
(French photographer and pioneer photojournalist)
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!”
– Ansel Adams
(American photographer and environmentalist)
“Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”
– Walker Evans
(American photojournalist and documentary photographer)
“God creates the beauty. My camera and I are a witness.”
– Mark Denman
(American photographer and quotation author)
“Taking a picture is like giving a piece of your soul away. You allow other people to see the world through your eyes.”
– Katja Michael
(German author and hobby photographer)
“The photographer projects himself into everything he sees, identifying himself with everything in order to know it and to feel it better.”
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“When a photo of a person looks deep into your spirit and tells you a thousand stories….. Stories from your past even before you existed, then the photo is way above any description.”
– Sameh Elsayed
(Egyptian author and poet)
“One doesn’t stop seeing. One doesn’t stop framing. It doesn’t turn off and turn on. It’s on all the time.”
– Annie Leibovitz
(American portrait photographer)
“Photography helps me to reflect on life.”
– Steve Coleman
(Australian landscape photographer)
“When I looked at things for what they are I was fool enough to persist in my folly and found that each photograph was a mirror of my Self.”
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“To collect photographs is to collect the world.”
– Susan Sontag
(American essayist, philosopher and critic)
“You just have to live and life will give you pictures.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
(French photographer and pioneer photojournalist)
“Photography is a language more universal than words.“
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.”
– Steve McCurry
(American photojournalist and documentary photographer)
“Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.”
– Peter Adams
(Australian photographer and interviewer)
“The things you don’t show can say more than the things that are made visible.“
– Erwin Olaf
(Dutch photographer and visual artist)
“The camera draws us into an experience of presence with this moment now, and it becomes a prayer.“
– Christine Valters Paintner
(American author and spiritual director)
“At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.“
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“The act of taking photographs is prayer for the irreversible past, and is a starting point for articulating a new narrative.“
– Toshiya Murakoshi
(Japanese landscape photographer and artist)
“It is fabulous. What a joy of a thing to work with. The camera is the most eager and helpful of all beings, all full of happy suggestions. Reminding me of things I have overlooked and cooperating in the creation of new worlds. So Simply. This is a Zen camera.“
– Thomas Merton
(American Trappist monk and author)
“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.“
– Alfred Stieglitz
(Pioneering American photographer and promoter)
“To me, photography is a gift from God.“
– Jakub Szymczuk
(Polish photojournalist and presidential photographer)
“There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”
– Ansel Adams
(American photographer and environmentalist)
“The camera does not know what it takes; it captures materials with which you reconstruct, not so much what you saw as what you thought you saw. Hence the best photography is aware, mindful, of illusion and uses illusion.“
– Thomas Merton
(American Trappist monk and author)
„I use photography as a way to help me understand why I am here. The camera helps me to see.”
– Trent Parke
(Australian photojournalist and art photographer)
„To see through, not merely with, the eye, to perceive with the inner eye, and by an act of choice to capture the essence of that perception. This is the very core of the creative process.”
– Minor White
(influential American photographer)
“It is not so much the intensification of the outer world, but a clarification of the inner world of the spectator.”
– Ansel Adams
(American photographer and environmentalist)
„Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being. It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering the remarkable world around you.”
– Freeman Patterson
(Canadian photographer and writer)
„I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical.”
– Trent Parke
(Australian photojournalist and art photographer)
„You can have what you think is the best equipment, and it doesn’t help if you can’t see. It takes years to understand how to see. It just takes doing it over and over and over. One of the reasons I’m still doing it is I love to do it. I love to look.”
– Annie Leibovitz
(American portrait photographer)
„I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.”
– Garry Winogrand
(Iconic American street photographer)
„Photography doesn’t teach you to express your emotions; it teaches you how to see.”
– Berenice Abbott
(American photographer and science educator)
„Light is my inspiration, my paint and brush. It is as vital as the model herself. Profoundly significant, it caresses the essential superlative curves and lines. Light I acknowledge as the energy upon which all life on this planet depends.”
– Ruth Bernhard
(American photographer and studio artist)
„Photography is, to me, more than a means of expression, more than my particular profession – it is a way of life.”
– Yousuf Karsh
(Armenian-Canadian portrait photographer)
„I expect photographs to find me. I never thought of looking for them. I instinctively put them there. My intellect had nothing to do with it.”
– Ruth Bernhard
(American photographer and studio artist)
„My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.”
– Sam Abell
(American documentary and landscape photographer)
„I have always felt that photography is a language for seeing and not for transforming, hiding, or modifying reality.”
– Luigi Ghirri
(Italian photographer and conceptual artist)
„Photographs do not explain; they acknowledge.”
– Susan Sontag
(Influential American writer and essayist)
„Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
– Aaron Siskind
(American photographer and abstract educator)
Light, hope, and the beauty of life qutes
„Beauty is everywhere. It is not that she is lacking to our eye, but our eyes which fail to perceive her.”
– Auguste Rodin
(French sculptor and draftsman)
„Everything is the light.”
– Stevan Pešić
(Serbian author and playwright)
(words from the play “Tesla or Adaptation of an Angel“)
„We are all forms taken by light the moment it touches matter.”
– Olga Tokarczuk
(Polish Nobel Prize-winning author)
„There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
– Edith Wharton
(First woman to win a Pulitzer Prize)
„We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
– J.K. Rowling
(British author of Harry Potter)
„Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
(American civil rights leader)
„To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.”
– Robert Schumann
(German Romantic composer and critic)
„The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
– Henry David Thoreau
(American essayist, philosopher and naturalist)
„Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.”
– Ruth E. Renkel
(American writer)
„The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
– Marcus Aurelius
(Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher)
„A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
(American essayist and poet)
„A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”
– Marcus Aurelius
(Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher)
„Wherever you are, be all there.”
– Jim Elliot
(American Christian missionary and martyr)
„Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light.”
– Yogi Bhajan
(Kundalini Yoga teacher and leader)
„Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.”
– Sogyal Rinpoche
(Tibetan Buddhist teacher and author)
„Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
– Desmond Tutu
(South African Anglican archbishop)
„The sun always shines above the clouds.”
– Paul F. Davis
(American motivational speaker and author)
„Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
– Albert Einstein
(German-born theoretical physicist)
„It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
(French writer, poet and aviator)
„God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls, and coal into diamonds using time and pressure. He’s working on you too.”
– Rick Warren
(American evangelical pastor and author)
„The place where light and dark begin to touch is where miracles arise.”
– Robert A. Johnson
(American Jungian analyst and authort)
„The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.”
– Mary Davis
(American spiritual teacher and author)
„Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul – and you answer.”
– Terri Guillemets
(American quotation anthologist and blogger)
„In today’s rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.”
– Eckhart Tolle
(German-born spiritual teacher and author)
„Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
– John Hughes (from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)
(American filmmaker and screenwriter)
„The day I decided that my life was magical, there was suddenly magic all around me.”
– Marabeth Quin
(American mixed media artist)
„Balance is not something you find it’s something you create.”
– Jana Kingsford
(Australian business coach and author)
„This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.”
– John Muir
(Scottish-American naturalist and author)
„The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
– Eden Phillpotts
(English author, poet, and dramatist)
„There are no facts, only interpretations.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
(German philosopher and cultural critic)
„We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
– Anaïs Nin
(French-Cuban diarist and essayist)
„The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.”
– Carl Jung
(Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst)
„Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
– Stephen R. Covey (summarizing Viktor Frankl’s philosophy)
(American educator and author)
„One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
– Abraham Maslow
(American psychologist and educator)
„Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.”
– Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
(Hungarian-American psychologist and architect)
„Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.”
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
(American mindfulness educator and scientist)
„Our moral problem is man’s indifference to himself.”
– Erich Fromm
(German-born psychoanalyst and philosopher)
„When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
– Wayne Dyer
(American self-help author and speaker)
„You have to be able to have fun on an ordinary day, because there are so many of them.”
– Kristin Ohlsson
(Swedish crime fiction author)
„Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.”
– Isaac Newton
(English mathematician and physicist)
„What a liberation to realize that the ‘voice in my head’ is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”
– Eckhart Tolle
(German-born spiritual teacher and author)
„From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow.”
– Henry David Thoreau
(American essayist, philosopher and naturalist)
„The truth is that you already are what you are seeking.”
– Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
(American spiritual teacher and author)
„Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.”
– Aaron Swartz
(American computer programmer and activist)
„I love that a pretty day gives people reason to went apeshit over. There’s something wildly wonderful about appreciating the little things, so much happiness to be found in it. The world would be a better place if more people went apeshit over things like sunshine.”
– Kim Holden
(American contemporary romance author)
„When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
– Willie Nelson
(American country musician and activist)
„Action is the bridge between the inner world and the outer world.”
– T. Harv Eker
(American author and motivational speaker)
„You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
– Mae West
(American actress and playwright)
„It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
– David Steindl-Rast
(Benedictine monk, author, and lecturer)
„The reward of our work is not what we get, but what we become.”
– Paulo Coelho
(Brazilian author and lyricist)
„Gratitude is the most beautiful form of happiness: it belongs both to its causes and to its effects.”
– Walter Dirks
(German journalist, theologian, and author)
„I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
– Albert Einstein
(German-born theoretical physicist)
„If you stop photographing things, and start to photograph light, you will amaze yourself.”
– Steve Coleman
(Australian landscape photographer)
Nature and inner peace
„One with nature… One with soul.”
– Angie Weiland-Cosby
(American nature writer and poet)
„If you truly love nature, you find beauty everywhere.”
– Vincent van Gogh
(Dutch Post-Impressionist painter)
„I go to Nature to be soothed and healed and to have my senses put in tune once more.”
– John Burroughs
(American naturalist and essayist)
„Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”
– John Muir
(Scottish-American naturalist and author)
„Nature literally has the power to heal. By slowing down and letting yourself notice the smell, sound, and feel of nature, you become present, aware, and often experience less stress. You become unbusy.”
– Lettie Stratton
(American writer and urban farmer)
„And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
– Mariah Danu
(Greek Olympic cross-country skier)
„May your time in nature lead you to yourself.”
– Shikoba
(Native American writer and poet)
„To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.”
– Mary Davis
(American spiritual teacher and author)
„Nature is the art of God.”
– Dante Alighieri
(Italian poet and moral philosopher)
„Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties. The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself.”
– Berenice Abbott
(American photographer and science educator)
„Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
– Albert Einstein
(German-born theoretical physicist)
„I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art.”
– Helena Bonham Carter
(English actress and voice artist)
„If you look closely at my photographs, you will get to know me deeply. You will see in them how I look, how I see and how I feel. These images are my prayer of gratitude for existence and for the beauty of the world – and my thankfulness for being able to be a part of it. ”
– Joanna Musiał-Janicka
(Polish photographer)
„Each of these photographs is a self-portrait of mine, which is why it can sometimes be so difficult to show them to others. At the same time, I feel an inner need to share this way of looking, with wonder and mindfulness, because I know it holds great power. When you change the way you look, you change, too, because the way you see the world changes as well. The world is where you choose to stop – and life will become (even) better because you will become a better version of yourself.”
– Joanna Musiał-Janicka
(Polish photographer)
A few final words….
I added the number “133” to the title only after the list was finished. I had no idea how many quotes I had managed to collect along the way 🙂 ?
Some quotes were difficult to place clearly within one of the three sections. Photography, nature and the way we see the world are so deeply interconnected that sometimes the boundaries between them simply disappear. So please treat this division more as a guide than as a set of rigid categories.
It is also worth remembering that not every quote circulating online is correctly attributed to its supposed author. Some are paraphrases, shortened versions, loose translations, or sayings whose original source cannot be clearly established. I tried to verify the quotes while creating this list, but in some cases doubts still remain.
“Modern science has not yet invented a remedy as effective as a few good words.“
– …these are not Sigmund Freud‘s words
or:
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
– …these are not Marcus Aurelius‘s words
These are popular quotes I deliberately left out. I really like the thoughts behind them and strongly agree with the sentiments, but I could not find reliable original sources confirming their authorship. They are widely shared online and attributed to specific people, but popularity alone does not make an attribution authentic. Rather than adding quotes with uncertain attributions to this collection, I decided to leave them out.
All the photographs in this post are my own. If you particularly like one of them and it isn’t available in my shop yet, feel free to write to me. Perhaps it is waiting just for you 🙂 .
PS. And who noticed that the last two quotes are mine? ? 🙂
