Irving Penn Quotes

Irving Penn was an incredible photographer known for his exquisite fashion, portrait, and still life images. Let’s dive into some of his most insightful quotes:

1. “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it; it is in one word, effective.”
2. “I can get obsessed by anything if I look at it long enough. That’s the curse of being a photographer.”
3. “In portrait photography, there is something more profound we seek inside a person, while being painfully aware that a limitation of our medium is that the inside is recordable only so far as it is apparent on the outside.”
4. “Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is the one they would like to show to the world… Every so often what lies behind the façade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe.”
5. “I myself have always stood in the awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.”
6. “Photographing a cake can be art.”
7. “A beautiful print is a thing in itself, not just a halfway house on the way to the page.”
8. “People… hide their faces. They barter away their portrait for a dubious reassurance of vanity. How little our pictures have to do with the people we really are, how much with the roles we play in other people’s lives.”
9. “I have always stood in awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.”

These quotes reflect Irving Penn’s profound understanding of photography and his empathetic approach towards his subjects. His words continue to inspire and guide photographers worldwide.