Famous Quotes from Photographers Who Have Participated in Photography Tours

A photography tour guide asked a simple but important question while talking to photographers from all over the world who had participated in the tours, each with a different style, attitude, and perspective on photography:

“What are some things about your photography that you wish you had been told earlier in your career?” Read their interesting answers

The first point in the famous photography quotes is said by Emanuele Serraino from Rome:
“I wish I had been told earlier to follow my ideas, to try to understand what is important to me, rather than just what I photograph.
Then I would commit to my exploration and find what is truly unique to me.
I wish I had been told to pay more attention to my surroundings, to look carefully at the sky, the stars, the sun, the moon, the seasons, the hours of the day, the animals, men and women, and most of all, the infinite and inescapable light, and to understand its value and its gratuitousness.

At first, I did not value enough to know a place intimately, to search, find and discover new things, the infinite hints in the same scene, the result of careful, narrow-minded and repeated research.

There was no one to tell me all this, so I had to discover them myself.
With the help of my camera, I realized what was around me and what was inside me.
Then I began my search and I try to tell this story in my photographs.
So you could say that with the camera, I discovered the world and myself, and found a way to express myself and read all that I could not express.”

The second photography tip is from Lee Chapman of Tokyo:
“Get closer, then get closer. There’s always that old adage that applies when it comes to photography.

It’s a phrase that’s easier said than done, but it’s always worth getting right to it.
It’s advice that, like any budding photographer, I was well aware of. But what wasn’t mentioned was the combination of eye contact and the ability to achieve that closeness.
The power of the model’s direct, honest gaze at the camera, at you, and ultimately at the viewer had been lost on me for a long time. Until I invested time and money in William Klein’s books.
Apart from the fact that his images are so powerful and shocking, there was something else about them that I didn’t understand at first.

Then I realized that at least one person in every frame was always looking directly at Klein, and ultimately at me, at the time the picture was taken.
Like getting close, trying to get that “look” under the best conditions can be agonizing, but whether positive or not, a connection is formed that, despite its momentary ambiguity, will be passed on to whoever sees the images later.

An undeniably powerful truth, one that I wish had been told sooner, yet I am glad I finally found it.”
One of the most famous quotes in photography is by William Lounsbury of Amsterdam:
“Light is the most important thing in a photograph.”

“What I always tell new photographers is that the most important thing is to watch the light.”
When we first pick up a camera, it’s easy to get caught up in the technicalities of composition and subject matter, thinking that if we can master three things: using the camera properly, getting all the elements in place and finding the perfect subject, we will be a “real” photographer.

It took me years to learn that if we don’t have the right light and we don’t learn to use light as an important element in photography, none of the other aspects will play a role.
The second part of this is knowing when to give up.
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, the result may not be what we want, for example, annoying shadows, a completely white sky or a lack of light can ruin the image.
When we learn to pay attention to light, we can predict sooner that the image will not turn out the way we want.

It may seem frustrating, but there are also positive aspects to it because it makes us more creative in photography, throwing away an idea and finding a new one, an idea in which, with the help of light, we will create a beautiful image.”

The fourth photography tip is given by Clara Abi Nader from Paris:
“Sometimes people ask me where to focus.

Instead, I ask them what they are looking at? What catches their eye?
I try to explain to them that we all have different perspectives, like having our own mental lenses. At least that’s how it was for me.

This came about after finding my preferences and probably after years of practice and trying different lenses.

I tend to work most of the time with 35mm or 50mm lenses, so I can say that I am used to seeing things in a balanced way.

I like to capture landscapes in my images, tell little stories and add layers and pieces of information to them that give the viewer the ability to see the main subject in the frame, while also seeing what is happening around it, and generally things that we don’t usually see.

After finding the main subject, which can be a tree, a person, a leaf on the ground, a building, etc., we need to see what composition we are interested in.

For example, a low angle but with little depth, a blurred head in front of that building.