scottsturgeon's photostream  

Here are some favorite quotes that express some of what I feel about photography, art and life:

"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in finding new eyes”. ~Marcel Proust

"A photographer who wants to see....must recognize the value of the familiar. Your ability to see is not increased by the distance you put between yourself and your home. If you do not see what is all around you every day, what will you see when you go to Tangiers?....Good seeing doesn't ensure good photographs, but good photographic expression is impossible without it."
~Freeman Patterson

"I have nothing but respect for people who travel the world to make art and put exotic Indians in front of linen backdrops, but it’s always been my philosophy to try to make art out of the everyday and ordinary." ~ Sally Mann

In order to be a good photographer, you need to work more on your emotions than you do on your technique. ~Paul Caponigro

"Quickly we stick labels on all that is, labels that stick once and for all. By these labels we recognize everything but no longer SEE anything. We know the labels on all the bottles, but never taste the wine." ~Frederick Franck

"At the root of creativity is an impulse to understand, to make sense of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to 'hear through the eyes'." ~Paul Caponigro


"Personal experimentation is revealing, and once you get into it, immensely engaging." ~Robert Henri

I would say to any artist: 'Don't be repressed in your work, dare to experiment, consider any urge, if in a new direction all the better.' - Edward Weston

"...innocence of eye has a quality of its own. It means to see as a child sees, with freshness and acknowledgment of the wonder; it also means to see as an adult sees who has gone full circle and once again sees as a child - with freshness and an even deeper sense of wonder." - Minor White

"All is as beautiful as we think it." ~Robert Henri

"It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly." ~ Claude Monet

"One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are." - Minor White

"The camera always points both ways. In expressing your subject, you also express yourself." - Freeman Patterson

"But before all else a work of art is the creation of love. Love for the subject first and for the medium second. Love is the fundamental necessity underlying the need to create, underlying the emotion that gives it form, and from which grows the unfinished product that is presented to the world". ~ Eliot Porter

"Photography is a medium, a language, through which I might come to experience directly, live more closely with, the interaction between myself and nature." - Paul Caponigro

To listen is to be brought with oneness. To listen is to awaken the greater love and gently part the barriers to true seeing; the eye of truth providing the wedge for the barriers to break and the inner ear to listen. ~Paul Caponigro