Beautiful dreams - if the world were more beautiful they would come true - But the world is relentless & cruel - people are - they must be, I suppose, or they could not live.
The usual channels of university studies or secretarial work did not appeal to me. I cherished difficult dreams through confidence in myself.
I can't remember exactly how old I was when my parents gave me my first camera, but it was a Canon, and I was certainly far too young to have such a good camera.
I make such big efforts to forget things and I can't tell the story of my life because, thank God, I'm still living it.
Celebrities do look different in real life from our images of them - there is a big gap. And that is what my work is about: the gap between the image and the celebrity themselves.
When you put an individual on the cover of a big picture magazine, like 'Life of Look', their career skyrocketed. As a photographer, you were very empowered; people came to you, bowing to you and what you represented.
We use fashion for status and to beautify and there's nothing wrong with that, but when it becomes completely unbalanced, then you're living a decadent life. And when that happens on a global scale, you're living in a decadent world.
Some designers retain a sense of humour about what they do, but others are deathly serious and have no life outside of it; they're lying awake night after night constructing dresses in their heads.
I'm attracted to artists like Frida Kahlo, because her work was her life, her questions, her outrage, her suffering, her pain. Everything is in her work.
I think there's always interest in how the other half live - I see myself as a down-to-earth Essex mum who just happens to be living this very glamorous life in Beverly Hills.
What I learned from Lennon was something that did stay with me my whole career, which is to be very straightforward. I actually love talking about taking pictures, and I think that helps everyone.
What I loathe is the multi-national conglomerates who must take responsibility for the degradation and pollution of so much of our landscape with their factory farming and greed.
I think a photograph, of whatever it might be - a landscape, a person - requires personal involvement. That means knowing your subject, not just snapping at what's in front of you.
I used to hate doing color. I hated transparency film. The way I did color was by not wanting to know what kind of film was in my camera.
In the photographs themselves there's a definite contrast between the figures and the location - I like that kind of California backyard look; clapboard houses, staircases outdoors.
Photography has always been about documentary, the depiction of the instant, a moment, sometimes a place. Each project is somehow an experimentation of a specific context or a character.
A woman said to me when she first sat down, You're photographing the wrong side of my face. I said, Oh, is there one?
Over the years I must have spent thousands of hours silently brushing on the liquid coatings, preparing each sheet in anticipation of reaching the perfect print.
I wish we could launch a ground-breaking competition that motivates kids to invent new ideas in sustainable living.
Digital photography and Photoshop have made it very easy for people to take pictures. It's a medium that allows a lot of mediocre stuff to get through.
I don't really have a favorite camera. I use a Leica and Canon a lot. It depends, especially professionally, on the requirements. But my carry-around camera is a Leica.
