Harry Callahan Photography Quotations

I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting.

I like the simple things. I don't know why. I'm that way. I came from a simple place.

The mystery isn't in the technique, it's in each of us.

I can tell you for me it goes on forever. There are some things you can't ever find out. You can't find out in one life either.

I can't say what makes a picture. I can't say. It's mysterious.

A picture is like a prayer.

I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

A picture is like a prayer; you're offering a prayer to get something, and in a sense it's like a gift of God because you have practically no control-at least I don't.

I photograph continuously, often without a good idea or strong feelings. During this time the photos are nearly all poor, but I believe they develop my seeing and help later on in other photos. I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

I think I came alive when I started photography.

You only do exercises in art school. That's not the real thing. A little bit tells you so much. You have to find your own self. And you don't know what you are! But that's what you have to search for.

Every time I talked about making a picture I didn't do it. I had already done it - talking about it! I quit talking.

In terms of art, the only real answer that I know of is to do it. If you don't do it, you don't know what might happen.

It's the subject matter that counts. I'm interested in revealing the subject in a new way to intensify it. A photo is able to capture a moment that people can't always see.

I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves.

Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure.

Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure. If man wishes to express himself photographically, he must understand, surely to a certain extent, his relationship to life.

To be a photographer, one must photograph. No amount of book learning, no checklist of seminars attended, can substitute for the simple act of making pictures.

I guess I've shot about 40,000 negatives and of these I have about 800 pictures I like.