"The very word composition, defined as the "the act of composing; putting together; arranging in proper order," implies that the picture-maker must do something besides setting up his camera and letting it photograph just what happens before it."
"...I want to make it clear that the success of a picture, as a picture, does not depend upon topographical interest of the subject, but on the ability of the photographer to convey impressions of beauty or interest by his manner of treating it."
"A view or a landscape will impress different people in different ways, just as a human individual will."
"I do want to make it clear that the success of the picture does not depend entirely upon the beauty of the subject, but mainly upon the manner in which the picture-maker uses his pictorial material."
"...I would recommend the photographer to regard the focusing-screen of his camera as a space to be divided into a pleasing pattern, rather than as a glass on which a reduced facsimile of a scene or view or a miniature likeness of a person can be seen."
"...but the fundamental element of picture-making is the cutting of the picture-space by lines or edges of tones, and this is what is known as "spacing"."
"The emotions suggested by facts, not the facts themselves, are what concern the picture maker. This is where he is differentiated from those who seek to make only records and who are concerned only with facts."