Anton Corbijn Quotes & Sayings

I'm not totally blind to the fact that I like people to see my work, but if it's not something I would enjoy seeing in a magazine, then I think I shouldn't be making it. I think that I don't represent only myself, I represent more people; I mean, if I like it, then I think more people will like it because I think I'm quite a normal guy. — Anton Corbijn

Body language is so important, as is composition. You can not say something, and then the body reacts, and it says a lot of things dialogue can also say. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

Film was something that I didn't see as a step up from music videos, though obviously, music videos, the fact that you work with a crew and a film camera, are the closest to film I've ever been. That is the only schooling I've ever had. — Anton Corbijn

Like stories, people have individual lives, and are all caught up in this murky thing. All of them have the best intentions. In that sense, you could just as easily tell the same story from another character's perspective. Maybe that's a good idea for a TV series. — Anton Corbijn

For me N.M.E. was a very big thing. When I first came to the United Kingdom I started taking pictures for them and I became their main photographer for five years, and that's really been the basis of everything I've been doing since. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

Sometimes you don't know if your memory is because you really experienced it or because you look at your old pictures. I have a nice picture of myself held up by my grandfather and my father standing next to me. We all have the same name - we're all called Anton Corbijn. That's something I cherish. — Anton Corbijn

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

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. — Anton Corbijn

My world is much bigger than music, and that's why I always fight the 'rock' label. — Anton Corbijn

I have such a love of good music that I find even melancholic music uplifting. Maybe I'm a rare breed. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

I'm a very, very basic photographer. The main strength of my pictures, I guess, is the mood and feel I get out of the people that I meet. But technically I don't think I'm very advanced. That never interested me. — Anton Corbijn

I happen to take photographs, and they happen to be used for a lot of things, but they're not really made to order. They're paid for, but they're not made for order. I've never really done real commercial work. — Anton Corbijn

The really simple approach to photography is a great balance to making the films. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

My biggest fear always is that I'll photograph an idea rather than a person, so I try to be quite sensitive to how people are. — Anton Corbijn

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

I didn't really know how to make a film when I made 'Control'. I had to create my own language, just as I did when I started taking photographs. I never studied either one. — Anton Corbijn

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

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. — Anton Corbijn

My photography is very European. In America, I always get the sense that people are comforted by understanding what they're looking at. Photography's quite clear here [in the U.S.], it's very well-explained. My photography's perhaps not as well-explained. — Anton Corbijn

I've done an incredible amount of painters. It's an area, for me, where there's more mystery left. I've photographed so many musicians, I've been in studios so often, I know the whole process. The mystery's gone from it. I think it's important to keep mystery into our lives. There's a longing connected with it. — Anton Corbijn

Working with actors is something I've never done before. I find it tremendous. It's hard work. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

There's a lot about records that you cannot feel from a CD. — Anton Corbijn

I don't think I treat my film work as an extension of my photography. There are two different sets of rules there. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

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

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.' — Anton Corbijn

Mandela is just the eternal man. You want that man to be around forever. It's the closest thing we have to God, I think. He's the father of mankind, almost. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

Directing film is the hardest thing I have ever done. — Anton Corbijn

Photography was the only thing that mattered in my life and I gave it everything. — Anton Corbijn

I feel that when I shoot anything, and I have something beautiful, I just move on. — Anton Corbijn

If you make something with love and, you know, passion and you tell a real story, I think it will always find an audience somehow, you know. — Anton Corbijn

It's only when people get involved, when there's money involved, that you have a lot opinions around you. I try not to listen to them too much. — Anton Corbijn

I don't like fast editing. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

I didn't make music videos in order to make a movie. Music videos were the goal for me, so it was never a step to something else. I approached it seriously. — Anton Corbijn

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

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. — Anton Corbijn

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

I'm not educated as a filmmaker, so it's quite a jump for me. — Anton Corbijn

I have never understood models. I find it really hard to find beauty in that or to discover beauty because the beauty was so obvious. — Anton Corbijn

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

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. — Anton Corbijn

I've finally become an old guy. — Anton Corbijn

My way in for photographing people is really their work. I'm always interested in what people make, and then I photograph the person. Sometimes the person is a disappointment. But that's the risk. It informs me a lot about the character of a person if I know their work first. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

Grain is life, there's all this striving for perfection with digital stuff. Striving is fine, but getting there is not great. I want a sense of the human and that is what breathes life into a picture. For me, imperfection is perfection. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

With a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with 'The American' and 'Control' I managed to do that. — Anton Corbijn

I'm not famous; I am simply very well-known to certain people. Famous is something different. — Anton Corbijn

I wanted to make a film as an artist, and it's going to have to find an audience, you know. I don't know how big the audience will be. — Anton Corbijn

Photography has taken me from isolation. — Anton Corbijn

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

My life changed incredibly when I moved from Holland to England. — Anton Corbijn

I wanted to move away from Holland for my work because I felt that things would be better for me in England. But when I heard Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures', that pushed me towards making the move and making it real. I met them within 12 days of moving to England. — Anton Corbijn

'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. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

In England, I'm already labeled a rock photographer, which is a little insulting, because I'm not a rock photographer at all. — Anton Corbijn

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. — Anton Corbijn

I don't crop my images and I always shoot handheld. By doing that I build in a kind of imperfection and this helps to emphasize reality. — Anton Corbijn

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

By self-analysis you can not change your character, but you may change your mentality. — Anton Corbijn

I love body language. — Anton Corbijn