Helmut Newton Quotes
I am very attracted by bad taste-it is a lot more exciting than that supposed good taste which is nothing more than a standardized way of looking at things.
The desire to discover, the desire to move, to capture the flavor, three concepts that describe the art of photography.
It's that I don't like white paper backgrounds. A woman does not live in front of white paper. She lives on the street, in a motor car, in a hotel room.
...what I try to do is a good bad picture. I work it out very carefully, and then I do something that looks as if it went wrong.
Some people's photography is an art. Not mine. Art is a dirty word in photography. All this fine art crap is killing it already.
Some people's photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or a museum, that's fine. But that's not why I do them. I'm a gun for hire.
What I find interesting is working in a society with certain taboos and fashion photography is about that kind of society. To have taboos, then to get around them that is interesting.
The point of my photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to.
Technically, I have not changed very much. Ask my assistants. They'll tell you, I am the easiest photographer to work with. I don't have heavy equipment. I work out of one bag.
I like photographing the people I love, the people I admire, the famous, and especially the infamous. My last infamous subject was the extreme right wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.
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.
I spend a lot of time preparing. I think a lot about what I want to do. I have prep books, little notebooks in which I write everything down before a sitting. Otherwise I would forget my ideas.
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.
It's quite true that what I am aiming at, even when I take portraits, is to get a scandalous picture. I would love to be a paparazzo.
They often ask me to shoot for them. But I say no. I think an old guy like me ought not take pages away from young photographers who need the exposure.
I was lucky to have my wife as the art director, and it turned out to be quite something - a great success. I'm very proud of it.
I did find a wonderful girl last year, but the photographs that we did were more about motorcars.
The photographs don't arouse me. All I can think about is the hard work it took to make them.
The term "political correctness" has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell's "Thought Police" and fascist regimes.
