Mariko Mori
[Artist and photographer, b. 1967, Tokyo, Japan, lives in New York.]
... my father loved to take photographs of me. When I was nine I made my own costumes for a school play and I experienced becoming different characters. I loved to document myself as different images and I think my work evolved after this favorite activity. The photographs I exhibited in New York juxtaposed reality and fantasy. There was everyday life and fantasy was dismantling that reality.
Flor Garduño
[Photographer, b. 1957, Mexico City, lives in Stabio, Switzerland.]
The models are friends of mine: these photographs involve moments of complicity that only a friend could accept. If there is no fondness between the model and the photographer, this kind of work cannot be done.
Ellen von Unwerth
[Photographer, b. 1954, Frankfurt, Germany, lives in New York.]
I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.
Anderson Cooper
[Television news personality, b. 1967, New York, lives in New York.]
I heard that Elton John sold me at auction recently, and I was a little offended at that frankly.
(On his portrait as a dead-looking infant—“A very young baby, N.Y.C., 1968” —by Diane Arbus.)
Pamela Anderson
[Actress and model, b. 1967, Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada, lives in Los Angeles.]
I like the experience of being in a shoot, and I’m a total exhibitionist, but I don’t like to look at them.
Richard Avedon
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 2004, San Antonio, Texas.]
What is the function of a portrait? What degree of manipulation is correct, acceptable, between the sitter and the photographer, and should art concern itself with accuracy?
Philippe Halsman
[Photographer, b. 1906, Riga, Latvia, d. 1979, New York.]
Of all the beautiful women I have photographed, I recall Marilyn Monroe most vividly. Her great talent was an ability to convey her “availability.” I remember there were three men in the room… Each of us had the thought that if the others would only leave the room that something would happen between Marilyn and himself.
Richard Avedon
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 2004, San Antonio, Texas.]
A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he’s being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks.
