Robert Adams
Robert Adams
American philosopher best known for his thoughts on metaphysics, religion, and morality.
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth8 September 1937
CountryUnited States of America
support records world
I began making pictures because I wanted to record what supports hope: the untranslatable mystery and beauty of the world. Along the way, however, the camera also caught evidence against hope, and I eventually concluded that this, too, belonged in pictures if they were to be truthful and thus useful.
taking-pictures hated glorious
I thought I was taking pictures of things that I hated. But there was something about these pictures. They were unexpectedly, disconcertingly glorious.
hate doubt mind
Again the important point to remember is that you should keep asking yourself questions. Do not make statements. Ask questions to yourself. The mind hates that.
art pain goal
...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.
dream awake
You are before being and not being, awake and dream take place in time. You have no time.
life letting-go pain
No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing.
light quiet stills
There is still time - in the lee, in the quiet, in the extraordinary light.
ocean sea rivers
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.
feelings world awakening
When you catch on to your awakening, the world does not change. You just see it differently, that's all. You acquire a feeling of immortality. A feeling of divine bliss, so to speak, when things no longer have the power to affect you.
art independent knowing
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.
sea waiting energy
Our universe is a sea of energy - free, clean energy. It is all out there waiting for us to set sail upon it.
photography achievement doe
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.
mean light ends
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.
photography commitment rocks
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.