Elliott Erwitt

“In those simpler days, you could just take pictures of movie stars and show them the way they were, as normal human beings. And if I felt part of any movement at the time, it was just to do that - to be journalistic and photograph what is, rather than what is made up.”

“Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.”

“I'm an amateur photographer, apart from being a professional one, and I think maybe my amateur pictures are the better ones.”

“I'm not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious.”

“Somehow Photoshop and the ease with which one can produce an image has degraded the quality of photography in general.”

“The thing is that when you don't carry a camera, that's when you see pictures in particular, or at least that's when you think you see pictures in particular. When you do carry it, if you do see one on the occasion that you do, you can take it.”

“When I get up in the morning I brush my teeth and go about my business, and if I am going anywhere interesting I take my camera along.”

“My 'work' is about seeing not about ideas.”

“Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.”

“It's almost embarrassing, but I do have one trick for taking portraits on commission. I carry one of these little bicycle horns in my pocket, and once in a while, when someone is sour-faced or stiff, I blow my horn. It sort of shatters the barriers. It's silly, but it works.”

“All of my marriages lasted seven years.”