David LaChapelle Quotes

People get devalued in Hollywood when they age, despite all their efforts to stay relevant and beautiful and young. They can't get jobs anymore.

My pictures are about getting as far away from reality as possible. Dreams should be part of our everyday life.

Success to me is being a good person, treating people well.

I have this idea that you can use glamour and still have it represent something that matters.

I was working in this very bombastic style. I didn't really know about style. I didn't think about it: I did what I was interested in, what I was attracted to, what I was drawn to. I was drawn to color, and I was drawn to humor, and I was drawn to sexuality and spontaneity. It was all really intuitive. I never really thought, Well this is the style ...

I wanted it to provide an escape route, I wanted to make pictures that were fantastic and took you into another world, one that was brighter. I started off with this idea.

As you get older, you think about things differently from when you do in your twenties, when you think you'll live forever.

It's much harder to work for yourself, by yourself, than to create work for a gallery, because there are no limits and you can do anything you want. It's always easier when you have a parameter, when you have a limit. You can work within the limit and push it and walk the line, but when you're given absolutely no limits, it's harder. You must really think. It's more challenging.

There's nothing that symbolizes loss or grief more than a mother losing a child.

I'm a photographer, period. I love photography, the immediacy of it. I like the craft, the idea of saying 'I'm a photographer.'

What's shocking is cruelty and torture, and that's become our entertainment. Kids can play violent video games, but God forbid they look at a naked woman. That's pornography, that's perverse. No!

I'm part of what I consider the entertainment industry. For my photos to be entertaining, they have to be provocative and new.

We use fashion for status and to beautify and there's nothing wrong with that, but when it becomes completely unbalanced, then you're living a decadent life. And when that happens on a global scale, you're living in a decadent world.

The tools I learned photographing celebrities, now I want to use them to sell ideas.

I moved to New York when I was 15, but my parents lived nearby in Connecticut, so I could go be in this incredible countryside when I needed it.

The key is to photograph your obsessions, whether that's old people's hands or skyscrapers. Think of a blank canvas, because that's what you've got, and then think about what you want to see. Not anyone else.

I've never wanted to be part of an inner circle of any scene. I've always been an outsider looking to question and subvert.

I was always painting when I was a kid. But then when I handled a camera when I was 17, that was it for me. I loved photography. I would work 4 or 5 hours a day. It was like a calling.

I never want people to be repulsed with my pictures; I always want to attract people.

For me, it's easier to like more things than to dislike them; I'm not a critic in that sense. I find it easier to like more, to be more open and enjoy more things, which has given me more opportunities.

My mother taught me a lot about respect for all living things - for plants and animals. I am a vegetarian. I was brought up that way.

I never wanted to be famous. I always wanted to take famous photographs.

My idea was that if I took a picture of somebody and years later, or whenever, they would die and if someone wanted to know who this person was, they could take one of these pictures and it would tell who the person was.

I have no interest in being famous. I just want to make famous photographs.

I love fashion, beauty, glamour. It's the mark of civilisation.

People say photographs don't lie, mine do.

In the fashion world, I was always an outsider, but I made people look good, so I had a career.

My dream since I was a kid was to show in a gallery.

If you want reality take the bus.

My mum was one of those people who really wasn't allowed to be an artist, because she worked in a factory and she came from the war and all that stuff. She really has an artist's soul.

The adornment of the body is a human need. I don't see anything superficial about it unless your life becomes very materialistic.

You just do what you love, and then a style happens later on.

I didn't see any difference between being a photographer or being an artist. I didn't make those boundaries. If someone wants to think it's art, that's great, but I'll let history decide.

Prostitutes go to heaven. It's their clients that go to hell.