Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I would love to photograph Angelina Jolie.
Fashion photographers are the new painters.
I wouldn't have lasted two minutes as a designer.
The woman is always more important than the clothes.
I was never so attracted to the glamorous world. That never impressed me.
I've never been impressed by somebody who came in with a crocodile bag, you know?
I don't feel like a fashion person. I don't even have a little earring somewhere.
I have been meditating for 40 years. It makes it a bit easier to know who you are.
You know, as photographers, we do pictures, and people either like them or they hate them.
When I started, art photography, like that of Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Struth, didn't exist.
I didn't take inspiration from other photographers, which in a way helped to find my own images.
Now people ask whether photography is art, but I think the question is of absolutely no interest.
You can only really invent something if you connect yourself to the real world - whatever that means.
Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century.
You cannot say that one woman is 'more beautiful' than another, though people always do. It's so ridiculous to say that.
I'm firmly convinced that true beauty only springs from the acceptance of oneself, from an awareness of who we really are.
Women must be freed from the idea that they always have to stay young and that they must disfigure themselves at a certain age.
The discussion about whether photography is or isn't art is dated and of no interest. Your work makes you an artist, not your title.
Duisburg was the worst industrial, depressive part of Germany. But it was great. We had nothing, but I didn't miss nothing so that was fine.
Although humans see reality in colour, for me, black and white has always been connected to the image's deeper truth, to its most hidden meaning.
When I start thinking about a story, I don't start by thinking about the fashion, but about who I want to photograph and what the story should be about.
With the indiscriminate touching-up of photos, we've grown accustomed to seeing personalities drained of all their humanity, yet we consider them as real.
To go somewhere where nobody knows you, and to keep your eyes open... That was a beautiful concept in terms of putting yourself in a place to be inspired.
Isn't art about breaking rules, about challenging existing systems, isn't it about discovering meaning in things or situations before others see anything in them??
Now there is this whole terror about getting old. Today, that fascination with youth is overrated. What's so special about being young? I just say that because I'm old.
I go out very rarely in Paris. If it's a fashion party at a nightclub, I wouldn't dream to go. People come to you for your work, not because you go to all their parties.
There's something else that makes a woman interesting, something beyond being young or being old. And I'm going to find out what that something else is before I die, I hope.
People often say, 'You don't go to fashion shows? What kind of photographer are you? What the hell is the wrong with you, man?' But that's what I need in order to be who I am.
My first obsession was actually sports. I was a very good handball goalkeeper. With special permission, I played in the premier league in Germany before I was even old enough.
The most important part of fashion photography, for me, is not the models; it's not the clothes. It's that you are responsible for defining what a woman today is. That, I think, is my job.
Inspired by words you have to create images to tell the story, while it's much more difficult to find your own images with a film for inspiration, because someone has already done it for you.
These days, photographers have expensive contracts with actresses, but then the actresses have to have their names written in the column because nobody recognizes them. That's kind of strange.
Fashion photography should say something about the stability of a certain time you live in or what kind of women you like. The most interesting thing is not what they're wearing but who they are.
I thought fashion was just the pretext to do images with lots of freedom and get them published in magazines. You could express your point of view, make statements about women and about what you believe in.
My feeling is that for years now it has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined today. Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century.
For me, every photograph is a portrait; the clothes are just a vehicle for what I want to say. You're photographing a relationship with the person you're shooting; there's an exchange, and that's what that picture is.
The photographer, even in fashion and portraiture, has to have a standpoint. It's important to know what you stand for, no? Most people just take pictures but they stand for nothing. They follow trends and don't know why.
I started photography more or less by accident when I was already 27. I was taken on as an assistant by a photographer who was a friend of a friend and I very quickly understood the potential of expression in photography.
The photographer, even in fashion and portraiture, has to have a standpoint. It's important to know what you stand for, no? Most people just take pictures, but they stand for nothing. They follow trends and don't know why.
My brother had fabulous children before I had children and for some reason I wanted to photograph them, and that was when I got my first camera. Children have something totally unconscious about them. That's how I learned.
I show elements of the set in my pictures because it's not real. When I see movies, I often love the 'making of' more than the movie itself. It's not so final. When you have a woman just standing there, it doesn't mean much.
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.
In 1990, when they asked me to shoot a cover for 'British Vogue' to convey my personal vision of a woman, I explained that I couldn't just photograph one single girl, because what I was looking for was a new purpose, and new feminine determination.
I believe that the source of your inspiration is very important. I sometimes see this problem with photographers, even very good ones, who have drawn too much inspiration from photography and who, over time, have a problem forming their own identity.
People think that it is important to learn by assisting the great photographers. I say that is a big mistake. Be happy; just learn from any little guy. Learn how to use the camera - you don't need anything else. You can't be taught the real skill anyway.
A photographer is a photographer and an artist is an artist. I don't believe in labels or titles. Why should a painter or sculptor who has probably never challenged the rules be an artist just because his title and an art school education automatically make him one.
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.
In the beginning of my twenties, I started transcendental meditation. For years, I did nothing else. Every holiday, I went to courses. Meditation is a real simple instrument. You don't need a long beard or a sari. It's meant to bring you to yourself. It's as easy as that.
The idea of beauty today is a bloody mess. It's really awful. You look in the fashion magazines and see all of these retouched people. Some guys called retouchers go on the computer and take away everything that you are and then call it photography. I think it's such an insult.
I have a very big apartment in Paris but you can't really move around there anymore; piles of books everywhere. I don't want any more books. I have too many books; sometimes I have to buy another copy of a book that I know I have somewhere in my house or office because I can't find it.