Top 35 Mario Testino Quotes

Some people strive for perfection, but I often find perfection boring.

Grunge came from a group of English photographers, and they were documenting their own reality… I’m South American – we celebrate life.

I think my sense of color I have got from my upbringing in Peru.

The year has 365 days, and I want each and every one of them to be exciting.

I said to my mother, ‘When you see my name in ‘Vogue,’ I will have arrived.’

I’ve been criticised for pretty, smiley photographs, but at least someone is happy! In my mind, I am always giving the image to the sitter.

My favourite subjects at school were algebra and logic: making a big problem into something small.

I am obsessed by people. Usually I try to get the girl out of the model instead of the model out of the girl.

Ultimately, I made my range wider because I wanted to suit each publication that I worked for. Talk about reinvention – I’m like the Madonna of photography.

However spontaneous I hope a photograph will look, I always put a lot of thought into how I can make it happen. The very best pictures are the most relaxed, so a lot of fussing around technically can completely break the spell, and everyone freezes up with nerves.

At one moment, I thought that if I didn’t do a picture in a certain way, then it wasn’t a ‘Mario Testino Picture.’ And I’ve realized that Mario Testino is everything, Mario Testino is whatever he feels like being, because it always ends up looking like me, whatever I do.

When I see Kate Moss out and about, I think she looks more beautiful than when her hairdresser and make-up artist try and make her look like something else. And I remember when Madonna first asked Versace to book me to shoot a campaign with her, she came to see me wearing hardly any make-up, and she looked incredible.

I adore being able to go to the Oscars and know every single person at the party afterwards.

My pictures are my eyes. I photograph what I see – and what I want to see.

At the end of the ’90s, I was very bored with the usual models, so I discovered a new generation that impressed me with their fresh look. I still keep working with models like Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss, and I am still looking for new, interesting faces. Life is about discovery, and you should never stop searching.

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.

England is the country where I learned my profession. They are the ones that trained me, they are the ones that believed in me.

You have to be you. You can’t be anybody else. If you speak loudly, and people tell you to speak quietly, you can do it for a little bit, but loud people are loud, and people who are not, are not.

Oh my God, the graduate shows in London are so important! I still remember going to see John Galliano’s graduate collection – that was an event I’ll never forget.

I started being a photographer because I liked fashion. I liked the idea of dressing up and changing my look. I got earrings, dyed my hair. I would dress like a fashion photo.

A fashion photographer is nothing without clothes and hair and makeup. And when I speak to other photographers, a lot of them can’t reference a picture by the designer. Me, I say, ‘The Balenciaga.’ And I go to the shows. I feel like it’s my business.

I do a lot of decision making before each shoot. It’s a luxury to be able to choose what you do.

There is something about Prince William and Prince Harry that brings real modernity to the British royal family. They are also very open, human, and kind, and this is what I have tried to capture in the pictures I have taken of them as well as in my pictures of Prince William and Catherine.

I never notice a difference between photographing a man and a woman; for me, it’s just somebody.

There are never any absolutes in the fashion business: one day you may like black, and the next day you like colour. I think it’s a good lesson that we should never believe too much in any one thing – because the next day it’s out, and if we’re stuck to it, we’re out, too.

Even someone as photographed and aware of the camera as members of the royal family needs to feel completely comfortable if they are to look their best.

It’s a choice – there are two different sorts of photographer: those obsessed with the technicalities and those obsessed by the subject.

I have become aware on my travels that when a country loses the connection between its history and its traditional dress, something truly precious is lost.

I am obsessed with people and how to make them look their best.

A lot of fashion photographers will do the same sort of image for many years; it’s easier to be successful if you do that.

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.

My favourite words are possibilities, opportunities and curiosity. I think if you are curious, you create opportunities, and then if you open the doors, you create possibilities.

I don’t like a tormented photograph. Something attracts you in them, but the attraction isn’t because she has a pot on her head or tonnes of make-up and weird clothes and weird everything.

Some of my friends say that I only talk about myself. But it is funny: my house is covered in art but with nothing of my own, and when I’m working, I’m only thinking about what the client wants. So I don’t see it that way, but maybe it’s true. I mean, they are my friends.

I have no real training in the history of fine art or furniture; my eye just works by proportions. I react intuitively. In London, it’s all about color because the weather is so gray, and in that cold light they look beautiful.