Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The knack is to find your own inspiration and take it on a journey to create work that is personal and revealing.
You can't shoot in sepia, so converting into black and white and then into brown makes everything feel less real.
Margaret Thatcher was very good for the arts in so far as it gave people a real focus for something to be against.
The knack is to find your own inspiration, and take it on a journey to create work that is personal and revealing.
When I fly British Airways, I can't help but read the free Daily Mail, which makes me glad I am leaving the country.
Photographers never want to talk about the fact that they may well be in decline. It's the greatest taboo subject of all.
I love curating, because I'm lucky and privileged that I have a platform and I can share my discoveries with other people.
I have been photographing people dancing for 20 or 30 years now, and I think I will eventually do a book of dancing photos.
I always take photographs when I attend a funeral. Most people there know who I am and expect me to be there with my camera.
I don't like being flattered. It doesn't suit my English sensibilities. Remember, we are the great country of understatement.
In New York, you have the street; in the U.K., we have the beach. I end up being like a migrating bird, being attracted to it.
There are 65 to 70 photography galleries in New York alone. In the U.K., there are no more than five, and they're all in London.
Choosing sepia is all to do with trying to make the image look romantic and idealistic. It's sort of a soft version of propaganda.
By default, I am a travel photographer. I work on a combination of commissions and personal projects that take me around the world.
If there is any jarring at all in my photographs, it's because we are so used to ingesting pictures of everywhere looking beautiful.
I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the 80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise Britain.
I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the '80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise Britain.
The easy bit is picking up a camera and pointing and shooting. But then you have to decide what it is you’re trying to say and express.
Photography's central role is to be the absolute medium of the day. It is fantastic that there is no longer any technical intimidation.
Criticism is hypocrisy; society is hypocrisy. I'm a tourist. I'm a consumer. I do the things that I photograph and can be criticized of.
Of course, New Brighton is very shabby, very rundown, but people still go there because it's the place where you take kids out on a Sunday.
With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist.
For those aspiring to make a living from travel photography, it's a sad fact that the boring shots are the shots that are going to make you money.
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.
Filming is always a challenge because I'm not used to it. But I approach it head-on. I'm not technically brilliant, but it's the spirit that counts.
We live in a homogenized world, where it's hard to get excited when everything is slick and professional. The interesting things are the dull things.
I like to keep in touch with younger photographers. It's important that a younger generation comes up and questions the assumptions made by old farts like me.
When I first started learning how to take photographs, you had to spend the first six months figuring out what an f-stop was. Now you just go and take pictures.
As we travel around Britain, I am convinced most of us cannot really appreciate what we are seeing. We take too much for granted, because it is all so familiar.
We are drowning in images. Photography is used as a propaganda tool, which serves to sell products and ideas. I use the same approach to show aspects of reality.
Photography is, by its nature, exploitative. It's whether you use this process with a sense of responsibility or not. I feel that I do so. My conscience is clear.
You have to take a lot of bad pictures. Dont' be afraid to take bad pictures... You have to take a lot of bad pictures in order to know when you've got a good one.
Sepia in particular tends to make everything look a bit romantic and almost sentimental, hence the fact that it remains such a popular choice for wedding photographs.
As artists get wealthier and more famous, often their work gets worse... I'm fascinated by the decline of artists. I suspect I'll be in decline myself. It's a fact of life.
When a mother takes pictures of her children on the beach, she doesn't take herself for an artist; she does it for love, which is an excellent reason, from my point of view.
I accept that all photography is voyeuristic and exploitative, and obviously I live with my own guilt and conscience. It's part of the test and I don't have a problem with it.
I pride myself in being an aficionado of the British seaside. Throughout my career, I have visited and worked in many of the famous British resorts, from Great Yarmouth to Largs.
You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviors can be found.
If you go to the supermarket and buy a package of food and look at the photo on the front, the food never looks like that inside, does it? That is a fundamental lie we are sold every day.
When I visited Vietnam for Oxfam, the thing that really struck me was how the local farmers had to prepare to evacuate or climb to their mezzanines with their valuable family possessions.
In the '70s, in Britain, if you were going to do serious photography, you were obliged to work in black-and-white. Color was the palette of commercial photography and snapshot photography.
One of the things I regret is that magazines now are so lifestyle-orientated that the opportunity to do bigger projects is gone. This is a serious misjudgment on the part of magazine editors.
Magnum photographers were meant to go out as a crusade ... to places like famine and war and ... I went out and went round the corner to the local supermarket because this to me is the front line.
I see things going on before my eyes and I photograph them as they are, without trying to change them. I don't warn people beforehand. That's why I'm a chronicler. I speak about us and I speak about myself.
From the moment the tourist enters the site, everyone has to be photographed in front of every feature of note.... The photographic record of the visit has almost destroyed the very notion of actually looking.
Over the years, I have perfected the art of dancing and photographing at the same time: it's a great double act. If you're dancing, you are joining in. If you stand there rigid, you are not in the flow of things.
Photos tend to organize chaos, to define what we're doing here. It is essential that individuals' voices depict the world around us, as we are increasingly controlled by large institutions, large companies and large systems.
I would urge everyone to start looking at the world in a different way. Spend some time looking at everyday objects, at their design, their shape, their individual characteristics. Think ahead and imagine their significance.
Personally, I don't take holidays; I go on trips. My idea of relaxing is taking a trip that isn't commissioned. I'll work just as hard, but without that nagging pressure of fulfilling a commission. Now that's what I call a holiday.
Fashion pictures show people looking glamorous. Travel pictures show a place looking at its best, nothing to do with the reality. In the cookery pages, the food always looks amazing, right? Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.