Mario Testino Fashion Quotations

Fine artists reflect, and then they act. Fashion photographers - we act, and then we reflect.

Most photographers go and photograph something that they see, that exists, and that somebody else has created - they document it. But fashion photographers have to create what they're going to photograph. We have to go into the thought and build it up, get a girl, get a guy, get a situation, get the house, get the decor. It's the meaning of the word photography: "writing with light."

I started being a photographer because I liked fashion. I liked the idea of dressing up and changing my look. I got earrings, dyed my hair. I would dress like a fashion photo.

My favorite type of photography - apart from fashion photography - is journalism, which in a way documents something that exists in a very precise moment, that didnt exist in a moment before and will not exist ever again. This has influenced my work a lot - I usually try to make my images look like they just exist, like no effort was put into it.

I like getting my ideas from the things of now. I am very conscious of the moment, of images that belong to this moment instead of another period. Fashion is really a reflection of our lives. You see women today and they don't do their hair up; they all wear their hair undone. So you have to reflect that in your photography .

The way men are seen in photography, in fashion, and the way that men look at pictures of themselves has changed in recent years. It is a subject that has come into focus: The masculine image, a man’s personal style, changing attitudes to the male face and body,