Today’s Bloganuary prompt is: What is your favorite photograph you’ve every taken?
This is an easy but hard prompt. Easy because I’ve shared so many photos in this blog. Hard because it’s hard to choose one favorite.
Instead, I’ll share something which I hardly ever do. Here are a few quotes about photography that ring true to me, along with photos I’ve taken that illustrate the point.
“When you photograph people in color you photograph their clothes. When you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their soul!”
–Ted Grant
“A photograph is not created by a photographer. What they do is just to open a little window and capture it. The world then writes itself on the film. The act of the photographer is closer to reading than it is to writing. They are the readers of the world”
– Ferdinando Scianna
“Photography is an art of observation. It has very little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
– Elliott Erwitt
Camera lies all the time. It’s all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you… the moment you’ve made a choice, you’re lying about something larger. ‘Lying’ is an ugly word. I don’t mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.
– Richard Avedon
… and because a post with just quotes feels like cheating, here’s something I wrote last year, about My Photography Journey.
The Sandy Chronicles 
You know I love your street photography and you’ve really demonstrated your eye for a great image here! I love them all but probably the Cheroot Smoker and HCMC ones speak to me the most – mainly because I wish I’d taken them 😆 And of course your quotes fit perfectly and give us lots of food for thought. The first one by Ted Grant is a favourite of mine. I often think of it when deciding to edit a portrait as a B&W shot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad you liked them Sarah. One of the things I miss about traveling is photography. My quiet surburban neighorhood in Toronto is an absolute desert of opportunity!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel the same – after two years mostly at home I feel I’ve exhausted the potential, although central London sometimes delivers. I’m trying to do the 365 challenge on Blipfoto but some days I’m just not inspired at all. But we’re travelling a bit again soon 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love your quote-image pairings – particularly your Ted Grant quote; and I remember the Cheroot Smoker very well. I recall being very taken by it when I first saw it on your blog.
Thank you for sharing how you came to photography – I think it one of those challenges we face as students of mindfulness, who also love to look through a lens. To enjoy the moment, or to capture it. Although I only use my iPhone to take photographs, I have increasingly realised how different things look through the lens – sometimes things are missed in life which can be spotted through the phone … it really is quite enticing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Cheerot Smoker is a favorite of mine but perhaps this is the last time that I’ll share it 😉
Very insightful of you to find ‘things missed in life’ with your phone. A camera forces you to slow down doesn’t it?
LikeLike
You have chosen some awesome quotes here, Sandy. And your photographs to go with them are absolutely breathtaking!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d recently read the quote by Ferdinando Scianna & it’d struck a chord “… the act of the photographer is closer to reading than it is to writing. ”
While I think it’s true, it’s not wholly so. It begins with reading & observing but ends with selecting & editing the parts in the frame to leave in or out … all essential aspects of writing.
LikeLike
Interesting. My thought is provoked. First, well done for being able to choose favourite photos. They are all sweet and tender and black and white. Second, the first quote about the soul… It makes me fear that this is why I hate (most) black and white photos of me. I’m in full agreement with the second and third quote. How the photos will turn out depends so much on how I felt. As for the last quote, the camera picks, chooses, rather than lies, yes, just like a writer. Except that the writer can invent more. Maybe that’s why I don’t like to edit my photos much. If I wished to invent, I’d be writing fiction. Thanks for the link too, it appears I missed that post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t know many people who like photos of themselves – color or monochrome.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Budapest photograph is a story all on its own. The eye focuses in on the elderly woman carrying her groceries, and pans outward to the muscle ad in the store window…The contrast between the two is sad, and real, and human.
Are you sure you’re not a professional photographer? 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice of you to say but no, I’m not a professional. Just an amatuer who occasionaly finds a good shot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The smoking woman is fantastic Sandy!
LikeLiked by 2 people
It is one of my favorites 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You have a very good eye.
LikeLike
Thank you Bernadette.
LikeLike