Top 40 Anton Corbijn Quotes

There’s a lot about records that you cannot feel from a CD.

I don’t have lights, I don’t have assistants, I just go and meet somebody and take a photograph. That’s really basic, and that’s how I used to work when I was 17 or 18 in Holland.

I never really enjoyed getting a portfolio together then sending it out; whereas, putting up the website is quite an enjoyable experience. The net’s just a much faster and more modern way to distribute things, and you have to embrace it.

Once you make decisions, you can’t go back, but in photography, that process can continue. With film, you have to eliminate all the possibilities and make the one possibility work the best for you, so you have to become very creative with the direction you’ve chosen.

Apart from photography and music videos, I also do graphic design.

I think if you don’t feel passionate about the first movie you’re doing, in the end the project will lack something because you don’t have enough experience to make the movie something special.

I don’t want to continue to do what I did when I was 20. I would like to continue to develop myself and not continue to hang around with bands.

In England, I’m already labeled a rock photographer, which is a little insulting, because I’m not a rock photographer at all.

Analog is more beautiful than digital, really, but we go for comfort.

I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you’ve never made a film, you’re not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.

I only make storyboards for action scenes. Once you make a storyboard, you don’t film; it can be a stiff move.

‘Control’ had to do with my own life a lot, and that’s why that seemed to be a film I could be the director of, because I had an emotional attachment to the whole story. And because of that experience, I feel that I can try other films. I didn’t set out to become a director.

I think Amsterdam is to Holland what New York is to America in a sense. It’s a metropolis, so it’s representative of Holland, but only a part of it – you know, it’s more extreme, there’s more happening, it’s more liberal and more daring than the countryside in Holland is.

Generally my focus has been on people who make things, whether it’s writers or directors or painters or musicians.

You always want to come back with an image that’s interesting visually, and you hope to get something from the person you photograph that’s different than other images you know of these people.

I don’t like fast editing.

If you’re an artist, it’s OK to put your money into your art. The advantage, in hindsight, is that you become the film, and the film becomes you; you breathe it.

In 1979, I moved to England and photographed Joy Division and Bowie and Beefheart. At that time I got images that I felt had that special, well – power is a big word to say – more like intimacy and ambition that outlasted the photo shoot. I felt that they would have a longer life.

My photography changed from being more documentary-like to arranging things more, and that came into being partly because I started doing music videos, and I incorporated some things from the music videos into my photography again, by arranging things more.

My world is much bigger than music, and that’s why I always fight the ‘rock’ label.

I love body language.

A lot of scripts that I was given I didn’t feel were right for me, because I didn’t feel anything for them – I didn’t feel like I was going to change in life and start directing.

I am a village boy, and Amsterdam for me was always the big town.

I’ve always thought photography was a bit of an adventure, so to come home with the film, develop it, then look at the results has more of a sense of excitement.

For many years I wanted to do a film, but I never had the courage to clear my desk and say, ‘OK I’ll take a year off and do a film.’

I photograph artists, and some of them are very well known, but if you ask the average man on the street, ‘Do you like Anselm Kiefer?’ He would stare at you with a blank stare, because these are not celebrities. They are celebrated in a specific circle.

I don’t want to knock photography, and I don’t feel that film is up there but photography isn’t. I think they’re next to each other really, you know. There’s an incredible strength to a still picture. Or there can be an incredible strength to a still picture that can outlive you. That can outlive a film.

When I was younger, I’d buy a vinyl album, take it home and live with it, and I think that attachment’s largely gone for the file-sharing generation.

Working with actors is something I’ve never done before. I find it tremendous. It’s hard work.

The only advantage of the CD is that you have a booklet that can tell a bit of a story, but the little covers are just boring. I love vinyl, and I have loads of it. It’s the same thing as digital photography versus film photography. It’s a quality thing.

My first pictures are from 1972, and my first proper camera dates back to 1973. During the first year I used my father’s camera. It had a flash on it, which I don’t like, but I didn’t know anything about photography back then, so it was just what I did.

When you make a movie, you know you’re making a long-form thing, so the visuals are different than for a video where it has to be more obvious or in your face, I think, a little bit.

I had no agent, and I was getting approached by so many people that I tried to escape for a while because I couldn’t believe that world. Photography is not an industry, and suddenly an industry came to me, so I sort of had to accept it in the end and get an agent.

There’s only one music video that had an emotional impact on me, and that’s ‘Hurt’ by Johnny Cash. That’s exceptional. There is no music video I can think of apart from that one that really reaches you inside.

There are some elements of digital photography that I don’t really like, such as the fact that you see the results immediately.

I do have an ego, but I acknowledge the help I get.

It’s so easy for people to stick a label on you, and then that taints everything you touch.

With photography, you are lucky if you get people to look at your pictures at some point. There’s no formal way to show them.

I’m not educated as a filmmaker, so it’s quite a jump for me.

I’ve gotten used to not looking too far into the future; it’s best when you can begin each day anew.