DAVID LACHAPELLE

I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.

Just as Renaissance artists provided narratives for the era they lived in, so do I. I'm always looking beyond the surface. I've done that ever since I first picked up a camera.

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

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.'

My mother taught me a lot about respect for all living things - for plants and animals. I am a vegetarian. I was brought up that way.

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.

I never want people to be repulsed with my pictures; I always want to attract people.

I like the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas more than the actual one.

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

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

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

We use fashion for status and to beautify and there's nothing wrong with that, but when it becomes completely unbalanced, then you're living a decadent life. And when that happens on a global scale, you're living in a decadent world.

My mum was one of those people who really wasn't allowed to be an artist, because she worked in a factory and she came from the war and all that stuff. She really has an artist's soul.

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.

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

I was always painting when I was a kid. But then when I handled a camera when I was 17, that was it for me. I loved photography. I would work 4 or 5 hours a day. It was like a calling.

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.

As you get older, you think about things differently from when you do in your twenties, when you think you'll live forever.

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

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

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

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

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

The tools I learned photographing celebrities, now I want to use them to sell ideas.

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