PATRICK DEMARCHELIER

I love all women. Women are sublime beings. I love all of it: their eyes, their noses, their bodies.

My stepfather gave me a Kodak camera when I was 17 years old. I started working at a local photo store in Le Havre, France, taking passport pictures and photographing weddings.

Photography is an accident.

The dog is the perfect portrait subject. He doesn't pose. He isn't aware of the camera.

Photography is like a moment, an instant. You need a half-second to get the photo. So it's good to capture people when they are themselves.

I do like beauty, but an older woman can be beautiful and a clever woman is beautiful because that beauty shines through.

I don't stop at my past; I like new work. I like what I'm doing tomorrow.

Photographers have to make the clothes look fantastic; that's why we get paid.

When you are a photographer, you work all the time, because your eye is the first camera.

Dior Couture is like art - they are the art pieces of a fashion house. Each piece is unique and made by hand.

Only amazing designers think of the truly new.

When you're a fashion photographer, you must inspire a dream.

When you grow up in the country in France, you have small horizons.

Beauty is in the character of a person. It's about having an interesting face and about what's inside. Anyone can take a good picture.

Take pictures all the time. Don't worry if you take a bad photograph; you learn more by taking a bad picture than a good one. If you don't like it, study it and figure out why you don't like it. You'll learn from your mistake.

I don't take the camera out with me. My eyes are the camera for me every day.

For me, the new pictures are what I'm thinking about every day. The past is the past, no? Every day is a new challenge.

Every day is a dream, every day I spend with my wife.

I love my dog. Actually, the best portrait I did was of my dog.

Film is not very practical. The new world goes faster, and digital is very fast.

With Dior Haute Couture, the dream is already there.

When people ask me which is your favourite portrait, they expect it to be Diana, or someone famous. But the answer is my dog, Puffy. They think I mean Puff Daddy. No, it is the dog.

The movie that you'll be in is a new challenge. Photography is just the shot - one day, two days - and the next day you're gone.

I love digital, but the only problem is less intimacy. People look at the screen right away. Before, nobody saw the picture before you saw the final picture. There was more privacy in a way.