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Photography doesn't teach you to express your emotions; it teaches you how to see.
Berenice Abbott
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Photography enhances your vision and perception rather than emotions.

This quote emphasizes the idea that photography is not merely an outlet for our emotional expressions but rather a skill that sharpens our ability to observe the world around us. It suggests that through the lens of a camera, one learns to perceive details, patterns, and beauty that may otherwise go unnoticed in daily life, therefore improving one’s overall awareness and insight.

Themes

PhotographyPerceptionArtEmotionVisualObservation

In practice

Example use cases

During a photography workshop, I shared this quote to highlight the importance of observation.

More from Berenice Abbott

To chart a course, one must have a direction. In reality, the eye is no better than the philosophy behind it. The photographer creates, evolves a better, a more selective, more acute seeing eye by looking ever more sharply at what is going on in the world.
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Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.
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Actually, documentary pictures include every subject in the world - good, bad, indifferent. I have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.
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Does not the very word 'creative' mean to build, to initiate, to give out, to act - rather than to be acted upon, to be subjective? Living photography is positive in its approach, it sings a song of life - not death.
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The camera is no more an instrument of preservation, the image is.
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Photography helps people to see.
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Quote by Berenice Abbott | QuoteProject