I’m not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious.
In those simpler days, you could just take pictures of movie stars and show them the way they were, as normal human beings. And if I felt part of any movement at the time, it was just to do that – to be journalistic and photograph what is, rather than what is made up.
Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.
When I get up in the morning I brush my teeth and go about my business, and if I am going anywhere interesting I take my camera along.
Making people laugh is one of the highest achievements you can have. And when you can make someone laugh and cry, alternatively, as Chaplin does – now that’s the highest of all personal achievements. I don’t know that I aim for it, but I recognize it as the supreme goal.
I like museums in Berlin a lot, especially in the eastern part. They’re extraordinarily good.
Dogs don’t mind being photographed in compromising situations.
You must have a visual sense if you want to be a photographer. It is a very subtle thing, this visual business.
As a professional photographer I take photographs for other people to see – but I want them to see what I see. So I never assume that only a few people will appreciate what I do. At all times, the public should be able to understand what I’ve done, even if they don’t understand how I’ve done it.
The advantage of taking pictures of the famous is that they get published.
You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them.
Photography is a craft. Anyone can learn a craft with normal intelligence and application. To take it beyond the craft is something else. That’s when magic comes in. And I don’t know that there’s any explanation for that.
All of my marriages lasted seven years.
Ill always be an amateur photographer.
My ‘work’ is about seeing not about ideas.
I enjoy nothing more than spending time with my loved ones, young and old, and at least once a year we get together for a formal family photograph.
Photography is simply a function of noticing things.
Do what the client wants, not what you want.
Working myself into a position of total versatility, so that I can do anything I want to do at the time I want to do it. Whether I do it or not is another question.
Something catches your eye, or your interest. You attack it in some way or observe it in some way, and try to put it in some kind of form and take a picture. It’s as simple as that.
I’ve been around so long, most editors think I’m dead.