Peter Henry Emerson
[Writer and photographer, b. 1856, LaPalma, Cuba, d. 1936, Falmouth, Cornwall, England.]

 “A photograph,” it has been said, “shows the art of nature rather that the art of the artist.” This is mere nonsense, as the same remark might by applied equally to all the fine arts. Nature does not jump into the camera, focus itself, expose itself, develop itself, and print itself. (1889) 

Gustave Le Gray
[Photographer, b. 1820, Villiers-le-Bel, France, d. 1884, Cairo, Egypt.]

 The popularity that daguerreotypes have obtained will soon be surpassed by that of photographs on paper, and their great number scattered among the masses, will form an artistic taste and education, while art itself will no longer be permitted to deviate from the only true path, that of nature. (1852) 

Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]

 It seems so utterly naive that landscape—not that of the pictorial school—is not considered of “social significance” when it has a far more important bearing on the human race of a given locale than excrescences called cities. 

Eugène Delacroix
[Artist, b. 1798, Charenton-St.Maurice, France, d. 1863, Paris.]

 As far as I am concerned, I can only say how much I regret such an admirable discovery should have come so late! The possibility of studying such images would have had an influence on me that I can only guess at from the usefulness which they have now, even in the little time left me for more intensive study. It is the tangible proof of nature’s own design, which we otherwise see only very feebly. 

Emmet Gowin
[Photographer, b. 1941, Danville, Virginia, lives in Princeton, New Jersey.]

 Twentieth-century art has allowed me to see things in a cryptic way. I love the butterfly’s wings, which disappear when folded and when open leave this brilliant, intense pronouncement of nature, “Here I am.” 

Wynn Bullock
[Photographer, b. 1902, Chicago, Illinois, d. 1975, Monterey, California.]

 A person is quite different from a tree or rock or stream. By introducing the nude into my pictures, I started perceiving all the things I was photographing in new ways. In contrast or opposition to each other, things became much more significant and interesting, revealing many more qualities than I had ever dreamed of knowing and expressing. By using the nude, I stopped thinking in terms of objects. I was seeing things, instead, as dynamic events, unique in their own beings yet also related and existing together within a universal context of energy and change. 

Ansel Adams
[Photographer, b. 1902, San Francisco, d. 1984, Carmel, California.]

 In some [photographs] the essence of light and space dominate; in others, the substance of rock and wood, and the luminous insistence of growing things... It is my intention to present-through the medium of photography-intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to spectators. 

William Henry Fox Talbot
[Mathematician and pioneer of photography, b. 1800, Melbury, Dorset, England, d. 1877, Lacock Abbey, England.]

 It is a little bit of magic realized:—of natural magic. You make the powers of nature work for you, and no wonder your work is well and quickly done. (1839) 
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