Helmut Newton Photography Quotations

My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.

Technically, I have not changed very much. Ask my assistants. They'll tell you, I am the easiest photographer to work with. I don't have heavy equipment. I work out of one bag.

I hate good taste. It's the worst thing that can happen to a creative person.

Photography is 10% inspiration and 90% moving furniture.

The desire to discover, the desire to move, to capture the flavor, three concepts that describe the art of photography.

Look, I'm not an intellectual - I just take pictures.

There are two dirty words in photography, one is art, the other is good taste

It began when I was so ill that there was a good chance of dying. I promised myself that if I survived I would never again pander to a magazine's requests or follow the ideas of art directors. I would only make images which were personal, which arose out of my own life.

Some people's photography is an art. Not mine. Art is a dirty word in photography. All this fine art crap is killing it already.

What I find interesting is working in a society with certain taboos and fashion photography is about that kind of society. To have taboos, then to get around them that is interesting.

The point of my photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to.

Some people`s photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or a museum, that`s fine. But that`s not why I do them. I`m a gun for hire.

The photographs don't arouse me. All I can think about is the hard work it took to make them.