Brodovitch Quotes

#1. You don't get over a broken heart/ You just learn to carry it gracefully.

Jens Lekman

#2. Astonish me! (Instruction to photographers)

Alexey Brodovitch

#3. If we are ever to halt climate change and conserve land, water and other resources, not to mention reduce animal suffering, we must celebrate Earth Day every day - at every meal.

Ingrid Newkirk

#4. If you see something you have seen before, don't click the shutter.

Alexey Brodovitch

#5. Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.

Carl Sandburg

#6. The best way to achieve surprise quality is by avoiding cliches.

Alexey Brodovitch

#7. When the novice photographer starts taking pictures, he carries his camera about and shoots everything that interests him. There comes a time when he must crystallize his ideas and set off in an particular direction. He must learn that shooting for the sake of shooting is dull and unprofitable.

Alexey Brodovitch

#8. The public is being spoiled by good technical quality photographs in magazines, on television, in the movies, and they have become bored. The disease of our age is this boredom and a good photographer must successfully combat it. The only way to do this is by invention - by surprise.

Alexey Brodovitch

#9. I don't think journalists should talk about whom they're voting for.

Tom Wolfe

#10. What would many happy citizens and trustworthy officials have become but unruly, stormy innovators and dreamers of useless dreams, if not for the effort of their schools?

Hermann Hesse

#11. It is the unexpected and the surprise quality of a personal vision, rather than the emotion, which make people respond to a photograph.

Alexey Brodovitch

#12. Most girls got flowers. I got a dirt pit used for demon raising. Nice.

Rachel Hawkins

#13. If you know yourself, you are doomed.

Alexey Brodovitch

#14. When I say that a good picture has surprise quality or shock appeal, I do not mean that it is a loud or vulgar picture but, instead, that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me.

Alexey Brodovitch

#15. There is no recipe for good layout, what must be maintained is a feeling of change and contrast. A layout man should be simple with good photographs. He should perform acrobatics when the pictures are bad.

Alexey Brodovitch

#16. Outstanding past work in photography, and in fact in all the arts, is very important to today's photographers. But it should be used for inspiration and not for imitation. These works should be something to be built upon, not to be repeated.

Alexey Brodovitch

#17. Imitation is the greatest danger of the young [artist].

Alexey Brodovitch

#18. It is every photographer's responsibility to discover new images and a new personal way of looking at things. If he can do this his pictures will command attention and have surprise quality.

Alexey Brodovitch

#19. The creative life of the commercial photographer is like the life of a butterfly. Very seldom do we see a photographer who is really productive for more than eight or ten years.

Alexey Brodovitch

#20. It is the photographer's decision at the two levels of seeing the picture - when it is shot and when it is chosen and printed that determines his personal style.

Alexey Brodovitch

#21. Most Christians would not recognize Mormonism as part of the Christian faith.

Franklin Graham

#22. What is good today may be a cliche tomorrow.

Alexey Brodovitch

#23. I believe we all have the Voice of Reason inside us ... to gently lead us out of our own self-created hells ...

Bill Hicks

#24. The photograph is not only a pictorial report; it is also a psychological report. It represents the feelings and point of view of the intelligence behind the camera.

Alexey Brodovitch

#25. One should discuss one's difficulties only when they are over.

Elizabeth Bowen

#26. It is the end result that counts.

Alexey Brodovitch