Robert Mapplethorpe Quotes about Photography

I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today's existence.

When I have sex with someone I forget who I am. For a minute I even forget I'm human. It's the same thing when I'm behind a camera. I forget I exist.

I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before.

When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God.

If I am at a party, I want to be at the party. Too many photographers use the camera to avoid participating in things. They become professional observers.

If I had been born one or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make sculpture.

The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.

If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.

I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the photographs when you hold them in your hand.

I think that it was a great advantage to go into photography not knowing much about it. Not thinking. I think one of the problems with many photographers today is that they never see for themselves, but just like everybody else.

With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing.

I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It's always little altars.

People don't have time to wait for somebody to paint their portraits anymore. The money is in photography.