I'm really in no one city more than two months during the year. I'm constantly having to readapt my eye to new locations.
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.
One of the biggest mistakes a photographer can make is to look at the real world and cling to the vain hope that next time his film will somehow bear a closer resemblance to it.
Charm, I think, is education, really, no? I was educated to be nice to everybody. If you want to be rude and mean, I'm sure your life isn't that nice.
I got a lot of flak originally for writing with photographs, because the great cliche in photography is that one photograph is worth a thousand words, and photographers are usually dodo birds anyway.
But I was, and still am, an avid reader and so when I first started I chose to photograph many of the great writers in this country to try and earn a living.
I have a great admiration and tenderness for Azzedine Alaia. I haven't seen him in a while, but I guess he must be still sewing some dresses at night.
Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur.
In '73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn't make you feel relaxed... I managed to escape unscathed though, I'm pretty good at that.
One of the things that I am happy about in my life as an artist is that I am not considered a Hispanic artist.
I have lived most of my life in Paris, but I have a connection with Rome that I have with no other place. I'm attached by invisible strings.
For most Olympic athletes, their training is their hardest challenge and where they push themselves to the limit. For Paralympians, training and competition is an escape from the hardships and struggles of their everyday life. That is the difference.
Since I was a child, my whole life has revolved around music. It's often while listening to a song that ideas for my fashion collections formed.
No one will ever know what I went through to secure those negatives. The world can never appreciate it. It changed the whole course of my life.
I went through a pretty big David Bowie period when I was younger, and that has affected me profoundly in my life and my work.
Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.
To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.
Sometimes in news photography and so on, the pictures are a little bit dry, and put on the page and just set in a journalistic way in front of you.
The term "political correctness" has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell's "Thought Police" and fascist regimes.
When People magazine called me, I did the job on Ansel. I'm older than Ansel and he has to mind me.
Some people say to me, Isn't it too bad that people discovered you so late? I never thought that.
