You have to take a lot of bad pictures. Dont' be afraid to take bad pictures... You have to take a lot of bad pictures in order to know when you've got a good one.
I think the ordinary is a very under-exploited aspect of our lives because it is so familiar.
With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist.
Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.
I go straight in very close to people and I do that because it's the only way you can get the picture. You go right up to them. Even now, I don't find it easy. I don't announce it. I pretend to be focusing elsewhere. If you take someone's photograph it is very difficult not to look at them just after. But it's the one thing that gives the game away. I don't try and hide what I'm doing - that would be folly.
If you photograph for a long time, you get to understand such things as body language. I often do not look at people I photograph, especially afterwards. Also when I want a photo, I become somewhat fearless, and this helps a lot. There will always be someone who objects to being photographed, and when this happens you move on.
The easy bit is picking up a camera and pointing and shooting. But then you have to decide what it is you’re trying to say and express.
All photography is propaganda.
You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviors can be found.
I see things going on before my eyes and I photograph them as they are, without trying to change them. I don't warn people beforehand. That's why I'm a chronicler. I speak about us and I speak about myself.
I am what I photograph.
You can't learn passion, either you've got it or you haven't.
Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate. Most of the photographs in your paper, unless they are hard news, are lies. Fashion pictures show people looking glamorous. Travel pictures show a place looking at its best, nothing to do with the reality... Most of the pictures we consume are propaganda.
To ask people's permission to take their pictures? Sometimes it feels right to ask, but I will not ask, unless it is essential to do so. If you asked all the time, you would miss everything. With the exception of portraits, it is generally bad news if people are looking at the camera.
Unless it hurts, unless there’s some vulnerability there, I don’t think you’re going to get good photographs.
My black-and-white work is more of a celebration and the color work became more of a critique of society.
Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.
Magnum photographers were meant to go out as a crusade ... to places like famine and war and ... I went out and went round the corner to the local supermarket because this to me is the front line.
The thing about tourism is that the reality of a place is quite different from the mythology of it.
I try to photograph my own and society's hypocrisy.
We are drowning in images. Photography is used as a propaganda tool, which serves to sell products and ideas. I use the same approach to show aspects of reality.
Work harder, get closer and be passionate about what you photograph.
The knack is to find your own inspiration, and take it on a journey to create work that is personal and revealing.
I accept that all photography is voyeuristic and exploitative, and obviously I live with my own guilt and conscience. It's part of the test and I don't have a problem with it.
Taking photos is a form of collecting.
