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I'm almost violent about that stuff - electronic manipulation of pictures. I think it's an abomination. I reject it all. I mean, it's OK for selling corn flakes or automobiles or for taking pimples out of Elizabeth Taylor's face, but it undermines the thing that photography is about, which is about observation and not about manipulation of images.

Elliott Erwitt

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Elliott Erwitt
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: July 26
Film Director
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
Paris
France
André S. Solidor
Elio Romano Ervitz
Andre S. Solidor
Elliot Erwitt
Thinking
Taking
Reject
Abomination
Almost
Rejects
Flakes
Face
Observation
Elizabeth
Faces
Images
Taylor
Stuff
Selling
Electronic
Mean
Pictures
Automobile
Pimples
Thing
Violent
Manipulation
Undermines
Think
Photography
Corn
Automobiles

More quotes by Elliott Erwitt

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Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.
Elliott Erwitt
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The main thing is to study pictures and stop listening to the pontifictaions of photographers. Photographers aren't oracles of wisdom. If they're good photographers, then take a good look at their pictures - what else do you need?
Elliott Erwitt
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Somehow Photoshop and the ease with which one can produce an image has degraded the quality of photography in general.
Elliott Erwitt
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Photography is a craft. Anyone can learn a craft with normal intelligence and application. To take it beyond the craft is something else. That's when magic comes in. And I don't know that there's any explanation for that.
Elliott Erwitt
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Everybody's got to do something... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on.
Elliott Erwitt
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The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words.
Elliott Erwitt
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I wasn't imposing my presence on anyone, which is very important for a would- be journalist. I stayed back. Always let people be themselves.
Elliott Erwitt
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Now very often events are set up for photographers... The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist.
Elliott Erwitt
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You don't study photography. You do it.
Elliott Erwitt
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I like things that have to do with what is real, elegant, well presented and without excessive style. In other words, just fine observation.
Elliott Erwitt
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I don't like explosions. I don't mind progress. But digital photography has made every man, woman, child and chimpanzee a photographer of sorts and consequently has numbed down the general quality of photographs.
Elliott Erwitt
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I enjoy nothing more than spending time with my loved ones, young and old, and at least once a year we get together for a formal family photograph.
Elliott Erwitt
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Working myself into a position of total versatility, so that I can do anything I want to do at the time I want to do it. Whether I do it or not is another question.
Elliott Erwitt
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The thing is that when you don't carry a camera, that's when you see pictures in particular, or at least that's when you think you see pictures in particular. When you do carry it, if you do see one on the occasion that you do, you can take it.
Elliott Erwitt
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In those simpler days, you could just take pictures of movie stars and show them the way they were, as normal human beings. And if I felt part of any movement at the time, it was just to do that - to be journalistic and photograph what is, rather than what is made up.
Elliott Erwitt
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Do what the client wants, not what you want.
Elliott Erwitt
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When I get up in the morning I brush my teeth and go about my business, and if I am going anywhere interesting I take my camera along.
Elliott Erwitt
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You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them.
Elliott Erwitt
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I am serious about not being serious.
Elliott Erwitt
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To me, 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