Quote

I see no difference between my pictures that people consider amusing and the rest. To me, it's all serious work - they're just a reaction to what I see. I don't leave this apartment in the morning and say to myself 'Today I'm going to be funny and tomorrow I'm going to be sad.'

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
Funny
Photography
Today
Tomorrow
Amusing
Going
Difference
Apartment
Work
Rest
Reaction
People
Leave
Reactions
Serious
Pictures
Differences
Photographer
Morning
Consider

More quotes by Elliott Erwitt

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I am serious about not being serious.
Elliott Erwitt
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If you've got no responsibility and don't have to generate a certain amount of cash each month, and can live on a shoestring, and are ambitious enough, then you might have a chance. You can be dedicated but that is no guarantee that you'll make it. I rely on a hunch, a little luck, and some cunning.
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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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
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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've been around so long, most editors think I'm dead.
Elliott Erwitt
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There's no great mystique to photography. A lot of photographers like to put their hands up to their forehead and tell you how they've suffered and so forth. Well, I just rent a car and drive to the place and take the pictures.
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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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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The advantage of taking pictures of the famous is that they get published.
Elliott Erwitt
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Covering a historic event is perfectly legitimate. It's not sneaking into somebody's boudoir... These people belong to history, and not to record that if you have the opportunity would be wrong.
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 can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them.
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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A picture should be looked at - not talked about.
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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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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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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You must have a visual sense if you want to be a photographer. It is a very subtle thing, this visual business.
Elliott Erwitt