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As a professional photographer I take photographs for other people to see - but I want them to see what I see. So I never assume that only a few people will appreciate what I do. At all times, the public should be able to understand what I've done, even if they don't understand how I've done it.

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
People
Public
Photographs
Times
Assume
Understand
Professional
Able
Assuming
Take
Photographer
Done
Photograph
Even
Appreciate
Never
Photography

More quotes by 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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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 don't study photography, you just do it.
Elliott Erwitt
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Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.
Elliott Erwitt
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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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Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.
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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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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Most photographers work best alone, myself included.
Elliott Erwitt
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I've been around so long, most editors think I'm dead.
Elliott Erwitt
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If you keep your cool, you'll get everything.
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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Balance of light is the problem, not the amount. Balance between shadows and highlights determines where the emphasis goes in the picture...make sure the major light in a picture falls at right angles to the camera.
Elliott Erwitt
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A picture should be looked at - not talked about.
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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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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I like museums in Berlin a lot, especially in the eastern part. They're extraordinarily good.
Elliott Erwitt
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I'm an amateur photographer, apart from being a professional one, and I think maybe my amateur pictures are the better ones.
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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It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you see into a picture.
Elliott Erwitt