Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
Ansel AdamsRead
One of the most important pieces of equipment, for the photographer who really wants to improve, is a great big wastepaper basket.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Embracing failure is key to improvement in photography.
Ansel Adams highlights the importance of discarding poor work as an essential part of a photographer's growth. A willingness to let go of unsatisfactory images allows for the space to create better ones, ultimately fostering artistic development and creativity.
Themes
PhotographyImprovementFailureCreativityArtistic Growth
In practice
Example use cases
In a photography workshop, a mentor might remind participants, 'Remember what Ansel Adams said about the wastepaper basket.'
More from Ansel Adams
All quotes βIt is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
Ansel AdamsRead
A good photograph is knowing where to stand.
Ansel AdamsRead
With all art expression, when something is seen, it is a vivid experience, sudden, compelling, and inevitable.
Ansel AdamsRead
The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
Ansel AdamsRead
You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.
Ansel AdamsRead
Similar quotes
I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.
John ColtraneRead
My music is mostly for the music. And it gives the liberty to do anything which I want. And nobody limits me to one genre of music. But I learn from life and I try to give back to life, in a way, whether it's the thought of the song or whether it's the approach to the arrangement or anything.
A. R. RahmanRead
Dogmatism of all kinds--scientific, economic, moral, as well as political--are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so. We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative persons of all sorts, are the possible destroyer of our nicely ordered systems. (p. 76)
Rollo MayRead
Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed.
John LennonRead
To me, this acquirement of nervous, physical, and emotional concentration is the one element possessed to the highest degree by the truly great dancers of the world. Its acquirement is the result of discipline, of energy in the deep sense. That is why there are so few great dancers.
Martha GrahamRead
Storytelling was a way to see the world bigger than the one you were looking at, and that had great appeal for me. I think, since that was part of my upbringing, it became part of me, and I wanted to pass it along to my kids and my grandkids.
Robert RedfordRead