David LaChapelle Quotes

I shoot fantasy. If you want reality, ride the bus

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.

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

If you want reality take the bus.

People say photographs don't lie, mine do.

I think we're in a post-pornographic time and nothing seems shocking, but everything remains carnal no matter what you do.

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.

My biggest advice would be to take the pictures you want to take. Don’t think about the marketplace, what sells or what an editor might say. And don’t think about style. It’s all bullshit and surface stuff. Style happens.

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

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.

My work is about making candy for the eyes. It's about grabbing your attention. Even though my work is appearing in magazines I am trying to make a large picture. I want my photographs to read like a poster.

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

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.

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

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.

The industrial revolution fueled all of humanity, everything we do has been exploding ever since. It's been the biggest most impacting thing, not only for human beings in the last 250 million years, but also the planet, which caused the ice age, which buried the forest. It's this circle because of the industrial revolution, it's neither good or bad, it enabled all of modernization, extended our life, it changed everything. It's the most impactful thing that happened to the planet and the people.

As an artist you have a choice. You can add more confusion and darkness to the world or you can shine a light, make a beauty.

Pictures are an escape. They should be bigger than life. In the same way, celebrities provide an escape from the mundane. They are photographed so we can worship them - so they are worthy of our worship.

You work with people who are obsessive about shopping, obsessive about owning things and buying things, like this purchase is going to make them happy. And you want to say to them, You know, no amount of real estate is gonna fill that void.

You can't change people's minds, we are not God. We can do our best to do what we do, whatever job we have to bring sort of goodness out there. But we can't change people. As an artist what I can do is to communicate!

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

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

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

I like thinking about the fragility of the human flesh and our bodies - our decay and eventual death.

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

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

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'll let criticism spoil breakfast, but I don't let it affect my lunch.

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

My work is about making candy for the eyes. It's about grabbing your attention.

There are going to be people doing the talking and people who get talked about, choose, which one do you want to be?

There is nothing ugly in sexuality or in the body. It's human!

As you are working on ideas, you are in a bubble, working on your images. What's important to me in my work, I like this idea of communicating through a piece of art so works don't have to be exchanged. They're okay and they're helpful but most importantly that the image will convey something in my mind that I was trying to communicate and then you have that connection.

I had this duality growing up with my dad being a strict Catholic and his brother being a priest and my mother finding God in nature, so I've taken a little from both [traditions].

I think that the world is really in very dark ages. In America this could have never been showed, we are even more lost over there than in Europe. We are very lost!

The cruelty, war and violence, this is evil, wrong and dark and that's what we should hide from the children, not a human body!

I still go to church occasionally. I went the other day and found peace.

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

Then I got this idea in my head that magazines were like a gallery and if you got your magazine page ripped out and someone stuck it on their refrigerator, then that was a museum – someone’s private museum.

People will get tired of overly retouched images soon and they'll want something different. If people have too much reality, they want fantasy. What matters most is what the image communicates. I remember the first roll of film I shot at high school, the contact sheet went from these really worthy images of cracks in the wall and ended up with all of my dancer friends naked in Renaissance poses.

I believe in a visual language that should be as strong as the written word.

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

I like the consistency of having people in my life for a long time.

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

I went to art high school and thought I'd be a painter. Unfortunately I didn't finish high school, but that's always been part of my work.

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.

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

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.

With mania, is it dangerous to ride that euphoric feeling. You feel very animated and creative; I would fill journals with drawings. It feels good and you want it to last, but it can lead to being delusional. The delusions can be as real as you thinking you can fly.