Julia Margaret Cameron Quotations

I believe that... my first successes in my out-of-focus pictures were a fluke. That is to say, that when focusing and coming to something which, to my eye, was very beautiful, I stopped there instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insist upon...

Personal sympathy has helped me on very much. My husband from first to last has watched every picture with delight, and it is my daily habit to run to him with every glass upon which a fresh glory is newly stamped, and to listen to his enthusiastic applause. This habit of running into the dining-room with my wet pictures has stained such an immense quantity of table linen with nitrate of silver, indelible stains, that I should have been banished from any less indulgent household.

When an actor is in the moment, he or she is engaged in listening for the next right thing creatively. When a painter is painting, he or she may begin with a plan, but that plan is soon surrendered to the painting's own plan. This is often expressed as 'The brush takes the next stroke.' In dance, in composition, in sculpture, the experience is the same: we are more the conduit than the creator of what we express

When I have had such men before my camera my whole soul has endeavored to do its duty to them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man. The photograph thus taken has almost the embodiment of a prayer.

Beauty, you're under arrest. I have a camera, and I'm not afraid to use it.

From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,

The clock is ticking and you're hearing the beat. You stop by a museum shop, sign your name on a scuba-diving sheet, and commit yourself to Saturday mornings in the deep end. You're either losing your mind - or gaining your soul. Life is meant to be an artist date. That's why we were created.

I wish I could take language And fold it like cool, moist rags. I would lay words on your forehead. I would wrap words on your wrists. 'There, there,' my words would say - Or something better. I would ask them to murmur, 'Hush' and 'Shh, shhh, it's all right.' I would ask them to hold you all night. I wish I could take language And daub and soothe and cool Where fever blisters and burns, Where fever turns yourself against you. I wish I could take language And heal the words that were the wounds You have no names for.

Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping.

I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.