All land, no matter what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty. Robert Adams More Quotes by Robert Adams More Quotes From Robert Adams ...assume that art begins in unhappiness. True, the goal of art is to convey a vision of coherence and peace, but the effort to develop that vision starts in the more common experience of confusion and pain. Robert Adams paingoalart Your own photography is never enough. Every photographer who has lasted has depended on other peoples pictures too - photographs that may be public or private, serious or funny, but that carry with them a reminder of community. Robert Adams communityphotographymay When photographers get beyond copying the achievements of others, or just repeating their own accidental first successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures. Nobody does. Each photograph that works is a revelation to its supposed creator. Robert Adams achievementphotographyworld The only things that distinguish the photographer from everybody else are his pictures: they alone are the basis for our special interest in him. If pictures cannot be understood without knowing details of the artist's private life, then that is a reason for faulting them; major art, by definition, can stand independent of its maker. Robert Adams independentknowingart The thing that keeps you scrambling over the rocks, risking snakes, and swatting at the flies is the view. It is only your enjoyment of and commitment to what you see, not to what you rationally understand, that balances the otherwise absurd investment of labor. Robert Adams rocksphotographycommitment Of all the sacred places on the coast, none is more comforting than where rivers join the sea. By the river's disappearance we are reminded of life's passing, while by the ocean's beauty we accept it, in a hope we cannot explain. Robert Adams oceansearivers No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. Robert Adams good-nightphotographyinspirational Darkroom work had, after all, never interested me except as a means to an end; the place I wanted to be was outside in the light. Robert Adams lightendsmean Little wonder that we. . .find the old pictures of openness - pictures usually without any blur, and made by what seems a ritual of patience - wonderful. They restore to us knowledge of a place we seek but lose in the rush of our search. Though to enjoy even the pictures, much less the space itself, requires that we be still longer than is our custom. Robert Adams spacephotographylittles ...combining the concrete and the universal is at the center of what makes art important. Robert Adams concreteimportantart There is still time - in the lee, in the quiet, in the extraordinary light. Robert Adams lightphotographyquiet No one, though has to go to college to make or understand or enjoy art. Wonderful artists and critics - some of the best - have educated themselves. Robert Adams collegewonderfulart You can't talk about life without talking about politics. You have to have both. If you're just a political person, you're going to burn out. If you, as an artist, are just focused inward, you're going to eventually be irrelevant. Robert Adams politicalartisttalking A lake that is noisy cannot reflect anything Robert Adams noisylakes Television probably has become the most evocative, widely observed signpost we have. Robert Adams signpoststelevision Art does not in fact prove anything. What it does do is record one of those brief times, such as we each have and then each forget, when we are allowed to understand that the Creation is whole. Robert Adams photographydoeart Art depends on there being affection in its creator's life and an artist must find ways, like everyone else, to nourish it. A photographer down on his or her knees picturing a dog has found pleasure enough to make many things possible. Robert Adams kneesdogart I thought I was taking pictures of things that I hated. But there was something about these pictures. They were unexpectedly, disconcertingly glorious. Robert Adams taking-picturesglorioushated Timothy O'Sullivan was, it seems to me, the greatest of the photographers because he understood nature first as architecture. Robert Adams photographyphotographerfirsts The experience of life that you and I have is pretty much a jigsaw puzzle in the box: Day-to-day experiences of disconnected pieces that don't seem to justify the efforts we make each day. Robert Adams jigsaw-puzzleseffortpieces
