Photography “is only a step to seeing and enjoying more without a camera,” Haas writes. He continues:

“For me, photography is joy, yet joy is not identical with happiness. In life, as in photography, joy is a most contagious force, one that can heighten all your senses—seeing, listening, smelling, tasting, touching. Joy makes you open and vulnerable, but it will also heal your disappointments. It is silent but shining; it is gaiety with a little gravity. It is more a smile than a laugh.

Joy is an inspirational force that intensifies existence. It is able to guide your heart, your eyes, and your hand when you release the camera shutter. The subject is unimportant; what you have framed speaks because you have photographed it.”— excerpted from “The Personal Style of Ernst Haas” by Ernst Haas in The Joy of Photography