85 Unique Photography Captions and Quotes for Instagram

1. “Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the photo is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.”

2. “When you're taking photographs of people, creating the “perfect scenery” is always secondary. It's much more important to capture the emotions. Especially when there's true love.”

3. “If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it’s already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.” – David Glen Larson

4. “I love the people I photograph. I mean, they’re my friends. I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all, yet through my images, I live with them.” - Bruce Gilden

5. “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”

6. “Fear is the thing that prohibits a lot of photographers from reaching their full potential.” Are you afraid of diving in? Or are you afraid because you don’t have time to do everything? Outsourcing might help!

7. “Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.” – Martin Parr

8. “A photographer went to a socialite party in New York. As he entered the front door, the host said, ‘I love your pictures - they’re wonderful; you must have a fantastic camera.’ He said nothing until dinner was finished, then: ‘That was a wonderful dinner; you must have a terrific stove.”

9. “There’s a time when people say your work is revolutionary, but you have to keep being revolutionary. I can’t keep shooting pop stars all my life. You have to keep changing, keep pushing yourself, looking for the new, the unusual.”

10. “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.”

11. “There’s a time when people say your work is revolutionary, but you have to keep being revolutionary. I can’t keep shooting pop stars all my life. You have to keep changing, keep pushing yourself, looking for the new, the unusual.” - Rankin

12. “I began to realize that the camera sees the world differently than the human eye and that sometimes those differences can make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed.”

13. “From a good photo, sun rays impinge on your eyes; water drips into your hands; the smell of grass comes to your nose! A good photo is real like the reality itself!”

14. “When you take the picture of the people, you take the picture of the whole stories of their past because every person is nothing but a combination of their entire past stories!”

15. “For me, documentary photography has always come with great responsibility. Not just to tell the story honestly and with empathy, but also to make sure the right people hear it. When you photograph somebody who is in pain or discomfort, they trust you to make sure the images will act as their advocate.”

16. “Wherever the center of the light source is, you want that to be a little bit above the center of the couple’s eyes – something magical happens when you do this.” – Zach and Jody Gray

17. “When a photo of a person looks deep into your spirit and tells you a thousand stories….. Stories from your past even before you existed, then the photo is way above any description.”

18. When a moment in front of me appears to be particularly special, whether it be by beauty or experience, I capture it. I usually find a reason to justify taking that photo - symmetry, or color or contrast - and it's my hope that my photography sheds light onto what I see and do on a daily basis.

19. “Photography is not about cameras, gadgets and gizmos. Photography is about photographers. A camera didn’t make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel.”

20. Now, between Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Google+ and 500px, you have more options than ever to share your photos. The problem is, how do you connect to this much larger audience?

21. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

22. “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 a word, effective.” - Irving Penn

23. “To me, the magic of photography, per se, is that you can capture an instant of a second that couldn’t exist before and couldn’t exist after. It’s almost like a cowboy that draws his gun. You draw a second before or after, you miss and you’re dead – not them. To me, photography’s always like that.”

24. “If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it’s already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer. ”

25. “I love this life. I feel like I am always catching my breath and saying, ‘Oh! Will you look at that?’ Photography has been my way of bearing witness to the joy I find in seeing the extraordinary in ordinary life. You don’t look for pictures. Your pictures are looking for you.”

26. When a photo of a person looks deep into your spirit and tells you a thousand stories….. Stories from your past even before you existed, then the photo is way above any description.

27. Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man.

28. “Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” Are you struggling with lighting? Refer to our guide on photography lighting basics for any location.

29. “Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” - George Eastman

30. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind

31. “Do whatever you have to do. People always want to tell you how to do it. No, do it your way. And don’t ask for like oh how can you do it … do it, figure it out. I figured it out one way or another and I did it.”

32. “Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.” Do you find yourself struggling to make wedding photography work? Learn when and how to grow your wedding photography business here.

33. Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.

34. I began to realize that the camera sees the world differently than the human eye and that sometimes those differences can make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed.

35. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” Aaron Siskind

36. “While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”

37. “If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it’s already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.”

38. “When the unique beauty of nature, the photographer's amazing ability and the perfect light of the sun come together, a genius photo appears where art looks more real than the reality!”

39. “There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

40. The advent of the digital age and the immediacy and convenience of digital video and photography allows people to become an integral part of the feedback loop, which actively shapes the content we are fed.

41. “When we look at the old photographs, we always ask three main questions: Are they alive? If they are, where are they? And finally, what is their life story? Photography is an art of creating many questions in the mind of the viewer!”

42. “Everything always looked better in black and white. Everything always looked as if it were the first time; there’s always more people in a black and white photograph. It just makes it seem that there were more people at a gig, more people at a football match, than with color photography. Everything looks more exciting.” – Jack Lowden

43. “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

44. “Gosh, my job is so easy! I just click a button all day… said no photographer ever.” Are you struggling with time management? Do you have too many things on your plate demanding your attention? Give outsourcing a try!

45. “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 a word, effective.” – Irving Penn

46. “With photography, a new language has been created. Now, for the first time, it is possible to express reality by reality. We can look at an impression as long as we wish, we can delve into it and, so to speak, renew past experiences at will.”

47. “The sight of this woman infringing on the privacy of others so aggressively and casually sent revulsion through my entire being. What was she doing? Hunting big game? Were the people in this small village home just a quarry to be stalked, a trophy later to be mounted on the wall? It was one of those moments when I felt ashamed to be linked with this thing we call photography. We photographers “shoot” and “capture”. We may insist that we “make” a photograph, but everyone knows we really take them.”

48. “I suspect it is for one’s self-interest that one looks at one’s surroundings and one’s self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs.”

49. “I love the creative process that goes into photographing models. It’s a collaboration between the model, the photographer, and the team to bring a vision to life.” – Bruce Weber

50. “Your inspiration is better if it comes from many different sources and your sensibilities will transform all those influences and inspiration into your own visual world. It’s like reading the book instead of watching the movie.”

51. “We photographers are a despicable bunch. We take photographs. The best of us do not show people as they wish to be seen, instead, we show people as we imagine they really are.”

52. “Photography gives you the opportunity to use your sensibility and everything you are to say something about and be part of the world around you. In this way, you might discover who you are, and with a little luck, you might discover something much larger than yourself.”

53. “When we see a photo of a sad busker, the first person we should think about is that musician, because the photographer is just an intermediary, the important thing is the person who is the subject of the photo.”

54. “Life is like a camera. Just focus on what’s important and capture the good times, develop from the negatives, and if things don’t work out, just take another shot.”

55. “When you acquire an understanding of the science behind light and what governs it, then you can predict its behavior and control the lighting in photographs.” – Roberto Valenzuela

56. “A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth. ”

57. “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”

58. “Everything always looked better in black and white. Everything always looked as if it were the first time; there’s always more people in a black and white photograph. It just makes it seem that there were more people at a gig, more people at a football match, than with colour photography. Everything looks more exciting.”

59. “I feel more like a creative artist using photography because there’s – the digital work is so interesting now. It’s come to that. I have had many different stages of photography - there are many different ways to take photos. But I feel now I’m in that stage of my life where I use the camera, you know, in that way.”

60. “Why do we use flash at all? Because photography is not the same as eyesight. We can see in low-light situations where cameras, dependent upon a physical process to record visual information, are half-blind.”

61. “I had the most amazing day photographing the wedding of [ ] to [ ]. Their neutral color palette really allowed the vivid floral bouquets to pop… what a dream to capture! What color theme would you have on your wedding day?”

62. “You need to use when you have to, such as when it’s raining. Or, when you just feel like it. Sometimes you wear it because you need to get the sun out of your eyes. Think about flash in the same way. Don’t use it all the time, but also don’t shy away from it. If it’s dark outside, use flash. If you know there’s time, and you have a good idea, and your clients will love it, then go for it.”

63. “It’s about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.”

64. “The people who hire me as a wedding photographer hire me not just because of my photographic style, they hire me because of the style of my personality. My style and personality match, so they know they’re getting a genuine style.”

65. “I think that emotional content is an image’s most important element, regardless of the photographic technique. Much of the work I see these days lacks the emotional impact to draw a reaction from viewers, or remain in their hearts.”

66. “Photography for me is not looking – it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” -Don McCullin (add an image)

67. “Spend more time working on posing, expressions, and creating energy between the couple and you - they need to feel the energy that makes them react. Remember, reaction is part of the pose.” Here’s our tips on posing with confidence.

68. “It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.”

69. “Circumstantial light considers not only all the properties and behaviors of natural light, but also how that light interacts with the objects around , so that it can transform those objects into light-shaping tools.” He has more to say! Click here for his Ask Anything Q&A.

70. “I have always been fascinated by the poetic condition of twilight. By its transformative quality. Its power of turning the ordinary into something magical and otherworldly. “

71. “To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”

72. “Clients love pictures where they’re laughing versus just smiling. That’s because there’s emotion behind it. Because you’re capturing energy, not just a still image.”

73. “For me, photographing models is not just about capturing their beauty, but also capturing the moment, the feeling, and the energy they bring to the shoot.” – Peter Lindbergh

74. “In my mind, I visualize how a particular… sight will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.”

75. “Take a look at photos where a person who is still alive and a person who died are together! Here lies a real illusion here! As if two birds were together, one flew away, but still the two are together! One of the two stones in the river has drifted away, but both are still side by side!”

76. “Photo dump” takes in the literal meanings of the words “photo” and “dump.” It’s basically a collection of photos you “dump” into a pile, which follow a theme or tell a story.

77. It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography, everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.

78. In terms of digital photography, I continue to print and use film for the most part. I still shoot with film, 21/4 film specifically, and I love it. I love it because I know what it does, how it really responds to light.

79. “If your photo looks happy while you are unhappy, then the photo has no meaning! If your photo looks unhappy while you are happy, again the photo has no meaning! Only if a photo captures your true emotions, it will be meaningful!”

80. “When a moment in front of me appears to be particularly special, whether it be by beauty or experience, I capture it. I usually find a reason to justify taking that photo - symmetry, or color, or contrast - and it’s my hope that my photography sheds light onto what I see and do on a daily basis.”

81. “To photograph is to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson

82. “Who is the creator of a beautiful photo? Is it just a photographer? No! If the thing photographed is not there, that photograph would not exist! The creator of a beautiful photo is both the photographer and the thing being photographed!”

83. Technology has eliminated the basement darkroom and the whole notion of photography as an intense labor of love for obsessives and replaced them with a sense of immediacy and instant gratification.

84. “Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed.” – Stanley Kubrick

85. “Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.”