Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Men
Progress
Consequently
Like
Quality
Photographs
Child
Sorts
Woman
Digital
Children
Photographer
Numbed
Made
Photograph
Chimpanzee
Every
Photography
Chimpanzees
Mind
General
Explosions

More quotes by Elliott Erwitt

Image
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
Image
A picture should be looked at - not talked about.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
Do what the client wants, not what you want.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
I like museums in Berlin a lot, especially in the eastern part. They're extraordinarily good.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
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
Image
The advantage of taking pictures of the famous is that they get published.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
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
Image
Most photographers work best alone, myself included.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
You must have a visual sense if you want to be a photographer. It is a very subtle thing, this visual business.
Elliott Erwitt
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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