Minor White Photography Quotations

No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.

Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts.

Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.

When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously.

I'm always mentally photographing everything as practice.

There's no particular class of photograph that I think is any better than any other class. I'm always and forever looking for the image that has spirit! I don't give a damn how it got made.

At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.

If all your life means to you is water running over rocks, then photograph it, but I want to create something that would not have existed without me.

Photography is a language more universal than words.

The photographer projects himself into everything he sees, identifying himself with everything in order to know it and to feel it better.

Reaching a 'creative' state of mind thru positive action is considered preferable to waiting for 'inspiration'.

We could teach photography as a way to make a living, and best of all, somehow to get students to experience for themselves photography as a way of life.

Let the subject generate its own photographs. Become a camera.

Students were taught by doing.

Some of the young photographers today enter photography where I leave off. My "grandchildren" astound me. What I worked for they seem to be born with. So I wonder where Their affirmations of Spirit will lead. My wish for them is that their unfolding proceeds to fullness of Spirit, however astonishing or anguished their lives.

Different levels of photography require different levels of understanding and skill. A "press the button, let George do the rest" photographer needs little or no technical knowledge of photography. A zone system photographer takes more responsibility. He visualizes before he presses the button, and afterwards calibrates for predictable print values.

The development of a love of medium and a responsibility for one's own pictures is an overall goal.

We emphasized the creativeness that happens at the moment of seeing over the kind that takes place in the dark room.