A short while back I collated a few choice quotations and sayings on photography and the picture-taking process: ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’.

I think various gems were omitted first-time round, so here are a few more:

“There are few professions where even when you are right at the top and a household name, you might still be standing on a draughty street corner with your feet getting wet and cold, waiting for something to happen.” (Philip Jones Griffiths)

Above - A British Airways aircraft taxis past BA tail-fins at Heathrow Airport, west London. Photograph by Toby Melville

“When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls.” (Ted Grant)

“I always believed the press would kill her in the end. But not even I could believe they would take such a direct hand in her death as seems to be the case…Every proprietor and editor that has paid for intrusive and exploitative photographs of her…has blood on their hands today.” (Earl Spencer on his sister Diana, Princess of Wales)

“A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.” (Ansel Adams)

Above - A ballet dancer performs during a dress rehearsal for a new production of Swan Lake by The National Ballet of China at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London. Photograph by Dylan Martinez

“I never shed a tear while taking pictures or I couldn’t have seen through the viewfinder to focus the lens. I guess if auto-focus was around then it could have been different.” (Philip Jones Griffiths)

“The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth.” (Harold Evans)

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” (Lewis Hine)

“The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.” (Henri Cartier Bresson)

“A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” (Ansel Adams)

Above - A man watches smoke from the Telegraph Fire near Yosemite National Park in El Portal, California. Photograph by Robert Galbraith

“The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.” (Henri Cartier-Bresson)

“I am sometimes accused by my peers of printing my pictures too dark. All I can say is that it goes with the mood of melancholy that is induced by witnessing at close quarters such intractable situations of conflict and joylessness.” (Don McCullin)

Above - A policeman stands guard as Shi’ite pilgrims march towards Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in preparation for his death anniversary during a sandstorm in Baghdad. Photograph by Ceerwan Aziz

“The first ten thousand shots are the worst.” (Helmut Newton)

“What do you think has been your contribution to today’s photography ? ‘Thanks to my effort in the last 40 years, there has been more paper and film wasted.’ ” (Man Ray)

“The photograph is married to the eye, Grafts on its bride one sided skins of truth.” ( Dylan Thomas)

“A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.” (Mark Twain)

Above - A man sleeps during the final of the Gold Cup British Open Polo Championship match between Ellerston and Loro Piana at Cowdray Park near Midhurst, southern England. Photograph by Luke MacGregor

“I only use a camera like I use a toothbrush. It does the job.” (Don McCullin)

Above - A worker is silhouetted as he cleans the floor outside the National Aquatics Centre also known as the Water Cube in Beijing July 29, 2008. It will host the swimming, diving and synchronized Swimming competitions during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Photograph by Claro Cortes IV

“A technically perfect photograph can be the world’s most boring picture.” (Andreas Feininger)

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’….or so the saying goes. But sometimes authors, journalists, commentators, philosophers and heck, on occasions, even snappers, describe photography and the picture-taking process with a  memorable phrase or succinct saying.

With apologies if I have either misquoted or misattributed any of the following quotations, here is a selection of my favourites in no particular order:

‘One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.’ (Diane Arbus)

‘Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.’ (Tony Benn)

‘It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.’ (Alfred Eisenstaedt)

‘Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.’  (Ansel Adams)

‘The camera is an eye that sees and records the lives of filthy people. Its pictures are hung in museums and published in thick books that future generations can see how horrible life was.’ (David Shrigley)

‘If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.’ (Robert Capa)

‘Journalists belong in the gutter because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.’ (Gerald Priestland)

‘The photographer is like cod which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.’ (George Bernard Shaw)

‘I hate cameras.  They are so much more sure than I am about everything.’ (John Steinbeck)

‘I don’t trust photographers. I’m now a relaxed, contented 60 year-old, but look at my pictures and you see a crazy, bug-eyed serial killer.’ (Richard Ingrams)

‘The paparazzi are nothing but dogs of war.’ (Catherine Deneuve)

‘My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.’  (Richard Avedon)

‘A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.’ (Diane Arbus)

‘The press is ferocious. It forgives nothing, it only hunts for mistakes…In my position anyone sane would have left a long time ago.’ (Diana, Princess of Wales)

‘Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.’  (Ansel Adams)

‘It’s weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don’t even amount to a couple of hours.’  (James Lalropui Keivom)

‘I think the best pictures are often on the edges of any situation, I don’t find photographing the situation nearly as interesting as photographing the edges.’ (William Albert Allard)

‘Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography.  Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next.  Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.’  (Henri Cartier-Bresson)

….And finally, although an observation on a specialist area of our text colleagues and not  about photography, I chuckled anyway:

‘Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.’ (Frank Zappa)