Quote

Whatever power there is in the urban pictures is bound to the closeness with which they skirt banality. For a shot to be good — suggestive of more than just what it is — it has to come perilously near being bad, just a view of stuff.

Robert Adams

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Robert Adams
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: May 8
Photographer
Orange
New Jersey
Robert Hickman Adams
Robert ii Adams
Shots
Closeness
View
Skirts
Views
Urban
Whatever
Bound
Stuff
Bounds
Perilously
Power
Near
Suggestive
Come
Shot
Banality
Good
Pictures
Skirt

More quotes by Robert Adams

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. . .art is a discovery of harmony, a vision of disparities reconciled, or shape beneath confusion.
Robert Adams
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Let go of the thoughts, let go of the mind, let go of everything. Let go! Drop it! Drop everything. Hold onto nothing.
Robert Adams
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Henry James proposed asking of art three modest and appropriate questions: What is the artist trying to do? Does he do it? Was it worth doing?
Robert Adams
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Television probably has become the most evocative, widely observed signpost we have.
Robert Adams
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Many have asked, pointing incredulously toward a sweep of tract homes and billboards, why picture that? The question sounds simple, but it implies a difficult issue - why open our eyes anywhere but in undamaged places like national parks?
Robert Adams
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The history of art is filled with people who did not live long enough to enjoy a sympathetic public, and their misery argues that criticism should try to speed justice.
Robert Adams
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We cannot empty the mind by thinking. Only by observation.
Robert Adams
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There is still time - in the lee, in the quiet, in the extraordinary light.
Robert Adams
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You are the Self, that perfect immutable Self. Nothing else exists. Nothing else ever existed. Nothing else will ever exist. There is only one Self and you are That. Rejoice!
Robert Adams
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I've been so lonely trying to become a photographer. If I'd known that before, I don't know if I had the courage to do it again. You get to a point where you feel that you have something that is your own. And if you don't find an audience for it, you are going to burst.
Robert Adams
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A lake that is noisy cannot reflect anything
Robert Adams
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The photographer hopes, in brief, to discover a tension so exact that it is peace.
Robert Adams
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You've always been free. You've always been bright and shining. Everything else is just nonsense.
Robert Adams
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Darkroom work had, after all, never interested me except as a means to an end the place I wanted to be was outside in the light.
Robert Adams
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Do not look for signs. Do not look for experiences. Do not be so complicated. Become like a child. See everything with awe.
Robert Adams
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...I felt that photography ought to start with and remain faithful to the appearance of the world, and in so doing record contradictions. The greatest pictures would then... find wholeness in the torn world.
Robert Adams
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All land, no matter what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty.
Robert Adams
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Again the important point to remember is that you should keep asking yourself questions. Do not make statements. Ask questions to yourself. The mind hates that.
Robert Adams
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There's something within you that knows what to do. There is a power greater than you that knows how to take care of you without your help. All you've got to do is to surrender to it. Surrender your thoughts, your mind, your ego, to the current that knows the way. It will take care of you. It will take better care of you than you can ever imagine.
Robert Adams
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If I like many photographers, and I do, I account for this by noting a quality they share - animation. They may or may not make a living by photography, but they are alive by it.
Robert Adams