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Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur.

Alfred Eisenstaedt

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Alfred Eisenstaedt
Age: 96 †
Born: 1898
Born: December 6
Died: 1995
Died: August 24
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
Dirschau
Eisie
Alfred Eisenstadt
Good
Approach
Amateur
Always
Creative
Naive
Dies
Fades
Learn
Willingness
Away
Professional
Spirit
Humble
Heart
Remain
Every
Photography

More quotes by Alfred Eisenstaedt

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We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, any one of which might say something significant.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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When I photographed Marilyn Monroe, I mixed up my cameras - one had black-and-white film, the other color. I took many pictures. Only two color ones came out all right. My favorite picture of Marilyn hangs always on the wall in my office. It was taken on the little patio of her Hollywood house.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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It's important to understand it's OK to control the subject. If most editorial stories were photographed just as they are, editors would end up throwing most in the waste basket. You have to work hard at making an editorial picture. You need to re-stage things, rearrange things so that they work for the story, with truth and without lying.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I enjoy traveling and recording far-away places and people with my camera. But I also find it wonderfully rewarding to see what I can discover outside my own window. You only need to study the scene with the eyes of a photographer.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I always prefer photographing in available light – or Rembrandt-light I like to call it – so you get the natural modulations of the face. It makes a more alive, real, and flattering portrait.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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Another picture I hope to be remembered by is this one of the drum major rehearsing at the University of Michigan. It was early in this morning, and I saw a little boy running after him, all the faculty children in the playing field ran after the boy, and I ran after them. This is a completely spontaneous, unstaged picture.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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Yes, I sold buttons to earn living. But I took pictures to keep on living. Pictures are my life – as necessary as eating or breathing.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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In a photograph a person’s eyes tell much, sometimes they tell all.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I see pictures all the time. I could stay for hours and watch a raindrop.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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People will never understand the patience a photographer requires to make a great photograph, all they see is the end result. I can stand in front of a leaf with a dew drop, or a rain drop, and stay there for ages just waiting for the right moment. Sure, people think I'm crazy, but who cares? I see more than they do!
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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Never boss people around. It's more important to click with people than to click the shutter.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I will be remembered when I'm in heaven. People won't remember my name, but they will know the photographer who did that picture of that nurse being kissed by the sailor at the end of World War II. Everybody remembers that.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I shall really have become a photographer.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I want to be a mouse in a mousehole.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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Photographers don't need to be aggressive. Some are. Henry Benson is aggressive - but then he's from Fleet Street. If you can talk to people, you don't need to push people around.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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All photographers have to do, is find and catch the story-telling moment.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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I seldom think when I take a picture. My eyes and fingers react - click. But first, it's most important to decide on the angle at which your photograph is to be taken.
Alfred Eisenstaedt
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In New York’s Times Square a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers.
Alfred Eisenstaedt