Quotes from Edward Weston

Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.

I was extravagant in the matter of cameras - anything photographic - I had to have the best. But that was to further my work. In most things I have gone along with the plainest - or without.

For the obvious reason that nature - unadulterated and unimproved by man - is simply chaos. In fact, the camera proves that nature is crude and lacking in arrangement.

There is nothing like a Bach fugue to remove me from a discordant moment... only Bach hold up fresh and strong after repeated playing. I can always return to Bach when the other records weary me.

My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.

Clouds, torsos, shells, peppers, trees, rocks, smoke stacks, are but interdependent, interrelated parts of a whole, which is life.

My true program is summed up in one word: life. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me.

Ultimately success or failure in photographing people depends on the photographer's ability to understand his fellow man.

The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.

Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.

The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer's understanding of his subject and mastery of his process.

Anything more than 500 yds from the car just isn't photogenic.

Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it my be.

My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.

Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection . . .

When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision.

Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it may be.

I was extravagant in the matter of cameras anything photographic I had to have the best. But that was to further my work. In most things I have gone along with the plainest or without.

Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that shadow, or the light).' As a matter of fact, I almost never wait, that is, unless I can see that the thing will be right in a few minutes. But if I must wait an hour for the shadow to move, or the light to change, or the cow to graze in the other direction, then I put up my camera and go on, knowing that I am likely to find three subjects just as good in the same hour.

The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?

Photography suits the temper of this age—of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately.

A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time...Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.

It has come to me of late that comparing one man's work to another's, naming one greater or lesser, is a wrong approach. The important and only vital question is, how much greater, finer, am I than I was yesterday? Have I fulfilled my possibilities, made the most of my potentialities? What a marvellous world if all would, — could hold this attitude toward life.

I feel towards persons as I do towards art, — constructively. Find all the good first. Judge by what has been done, — not by omissions or mistakes. And look well into oneself! A life can well be spent correcting and improving one's own faults without bothering about others.