Edward Steichen quotes

Edward Steichen was an influential American photographer and curator, renowned for his pioneering work in both art and fashion photography. His photographs helped define the visual culture of the 20th century, and he directed the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art. He is remembered as one of the most important figures in the history of photography. Here are 14 of his quotes:

Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper the photographer begins with the finished product.

Edward Steichen

I knew, of course, that trees and plants had roots, stems, bark, branches and foliage that reached up toward the light. But I was coming to realize that the real magician was light itself.

Edward Steichen

There is only one optimist. He has been here since man has been on this earth, and that is man himself. If we hadn't had such a magnificent optimism to carry us through all these things, we wouldn't be here. We have survived it on our optimism.

Edward Steichen

Today, I am no longer concerned with photography as an art form. I believe it is potentially the best medium for explaining man to himself and his fellow man.

Edward Steichen

When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself.

Edward Steichen

Once you really commence to see things, then you really commence to feel things.

Edward Steichen

The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each to himself. And that is the most complicated thing on earth.

Edward Steichen

Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.

Edward Steichen

When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration.

Edward Steichen

No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.

Edward Steichen

The use of the term art medium is, to say the least, misleading, for it is the artist that creates a work of art not the medium. It is the artist in photography that gives form to content by a distillation of ideas, thought, experience, insight and understanding.

Edward Steichen

A good daguerreotype was as perfect a kind of photograph as was ever made.

Edward Steichen