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.
Peter Lindbergh
I'm firmly convinced that true beauty only springs from the acceptance of oneself, from an awareness of who we really are.
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.
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.
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.
If photographers are responsible for creating or reflecting an image of women in society, then, I must say, there is only one way for the future, and this is to define women as strong and independent. This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.
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've never been impressed by somebody who came in with a crocodile bag, you know?
You know, as photographers, we do pictures, and people either like them or they hate them.
Talent is more important than nice body parts.
You can only really invent something if you connect yourself to the real world - whatever that means.
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.
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.
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.
I have been meditating for 40 years. It makes it a bit easier to know who you are.
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.
A lot of mainstream photographers seem not to think about what they're doing or feel any responsibility toward anything. By the time they're done, the models don't have any trace of themselves left. This thing about looking young with no wrinkles or expression is all so boring, really.
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.
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.
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 don't retouch anything.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Fashion is about change, don't you think?
I have not taken inspiration from the fashion shows. I don't even really go to too many of the fashion shows - and have not for 15 years - because I don't want to be inspired by the same things as everyone else. If everyone is inspired by the same things, then of course, you all do the same pictures.
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.
You cannot say that one woman is 'more beautiful' than another, though people always do. It's so ridiculous to say that.
Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century.
Fashion photographers are the new painters.
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.
I realized that I've worked quite independent from the fast-changing trends over all these years.
I wouldn't have lasted two minutes as a designer.
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.
I was never so attracted to the glamorous world. That never impressed me.
Women must be freed from the idea that they always have to stay young and that they must disfigure themselves at a certain age.
If you're just a follower, you never know why you are doing something. Then you can't know if something is good or not. How would you know that what you thought is right, if you didn't think it?
When I started, art photography, like that of Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Struth, didn't exist.
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.
I would love to photograph Angelina Jolie.
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.
I don't feel like a fashion person. I don't even have a little earring somewhere.
