Fred Astaire Quotes

There's always a certain amount of camera improvisation.

You don't take a photograph, you make it.

I have very strong feelings about dance and how it's shot.

I'm very lucky that I'm not a photographer for hire - people hire me for me. I go into every commercial work with an art focus, with that lens; every brand I've worked for just lets me do whatever I want to do. I have full creative freedom.

The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject, and the camera will all but take you by the hand and point the way.

I love photography and I love the art of photography. So when I'm working with high-level art photographers, I give them artistic freedom because I want that for myself when it's my turn to do my work and I never try and control it or say I'll only do this or I want it like that.

A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.

If a film is very clever and well-written, that's what gives you freedom as a director. Part of the freedom in directing, for me, is that I'm also the camera operator. That's the place where things are less rigid, where I can adjust as I go along.

Suddenly this camera, this thing, allowed me to move around the world in a certain kind of way, with a certain kind of purpose. (On receiving a camera for her twenty-first birthday)

I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element.

If you want to make pictures and enjoy making them, you better go out and make something that a lot of people want to see. And then they'll turn you lose and let you make what you want. And then maybe you can do some of the things that you want to do. But as a beginner, you haven't got a chance.

My pictures are my eyes. I photograph what I see - and what I want to see.

I'm much happier behind the camera.

I just really wanted to do art, except when I was taking those photographs of people I would make the clothes that I would photograph them in so I could control the whole thing.

I've created, directed and choreographed for Lady Gaga since the beginning, so 'Born This Way,' this was musically such an amazing evolution and such a brilliant record. So when she played it for me, it took me a while to find out the visual interpretation that I could give back to her.

I made the intentional choice to step behind the camera.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

I think films are bigger than structure.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.

There's a good many pictures I'd like to make; we'll see how many I'll be allowed to make.

All these directors, and I would include the Coen brothers and Quentin, have a very unique vision of what they want. They listen to ideas and make people feel like everyone is making the film.

Being behind the camera is where I feel comfortable. I've found something that I feel I, as 'Michael,' can be as confident in as 'Johnny' was on the stage. It's great being part of the creative process. You're right at the start of an idea, and you get to see it all the way through till the end.

I didn't want to just work within Hollywood when I started a production company. I wanted to be able to collaborate with great artists from all over the world.