Quotes on Photography, Art, and Living

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
Paul the apostle- Philippians 4:8

Find your joy in something finished, not a thousand things begun.
Douglas Mallock, poet

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.
-Diane Arbus

Of all the liars among mankind,  the fisherman is the most trustworthy.  William Sherwood Fox

The earth laughs in flowers.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Don't start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
~ sign on Barney Connolly's workshop ~

I see no reason for recording the obvious.
– Edward Weston

Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.
-Susan Sontag

A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?
-Ernst Haas

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind.  To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.  I have only touched it, just touched it.
-Dorothea Lange

It seems positively unnatural to travel without taking a camera along... The very activity of taking pictures is soothing and assuages general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel.
- Susan Sontag, _On Photography_ 

There are many teachers who could ruin you.  Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher.  You have to evolve on your own.
- Bernice Abbott

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-Pablo Picasso

Well done is better than well said.
- Benjamin Franklin

Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold.
-W. Eugene Smith

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
-Dorothea Lange

Hardening of the categories causes art disease.
-W. Eugene Smith

Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything.
-Bob Dylan

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

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
-Vincent Van Gogh

F8.......and be there.
-Galen Rowell

To the complaint, 'There are no people in your photographs,' there are always two people. The photographer and the viewer. 
- Ansel Adams

It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer.  You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things.  But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary. 
- David Bailey

Just because no one understands you,
doesn't mean you're an artist. 
- Anonymous 

When choosing a tripod, buy the most expensive one you can afford, and the biggest one your wife can carry. 
- Chuck from McBain Camera 

I like living.  I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. 
- Agatha Christie

The phrase "Time is money" is an insult to time.
- Dale Stilwell

God grant me the serenity to walk the portages I must
The courage to run the rapids I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
- Anonymous 

No Indian ever drowned on a portage
- Anonymous 

If you forgot you had it,
you really don't need it. 
- Patrick Connolly 

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead & rotten,
either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
- Benjamin Franklin

Home to Connollyphoto.com

Painting "Hugh's Flowerbox"

Art Teacher:  Hugh Mandelert   1927-2001

Canoeing the Chippewa River

Otter Falls

Lake Superior at Sunset