Irving Penn Quotes

Whatever it is that I am working on is what I become obsessed with.

You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do. You want to be focused on it.

As a photographer, I don't really have a view of the world in general. Someone taking pictures for 'National Geographic' might. Each of us works to our full capacity when we're in the midst of a shoot. Each of us finds our own level of intensity, and that's the fun of it.

I can't tell you how many pictures I've missed just 'cause I've been so hell bent on getting the shot I think I want.

I obsess over things... especially my book projects. It can be very time consuming.

When I'm writing something and I'm really into it, that's all I can think about, and it becomes the most important thing in the world to me, and it may not be that, in reality.

I tend to obsess over my passions.

Anybody can be a great photographer if they zoom in enough on what they love.

When I'm really fixated on a bit of writing, I can easily spend six days without leaving the house and barely leaving my room.

I guess I get really obsessive or passionate about things.

To take photographs is putting one's head, one's eye, and one's heart on the same axis

The form is always the measure of the obsession.

I can be horrifically single-minded.

There is something about giving everything to your profession. In Italian, an obsession is not necessarily negative. It's the art of putting all your energy into one thing; it's the art of transforming even what you eat for lunch into architecture.

Whenever I've directed something, there's this feeling of demand and focus that I like.

I am a person who feels compelled and then gets immersed.

When I'm working, I'm not so much disciplined as obsessive. I have this feeling that I need to clear everything away and get this down.

When I'm making a film, I'm obsessive about what I do, and I get totally into it. That's all I'm eating, breathing, living at that moment.

You have to find something that you have to obsess over if you're making a movie about it. As a director, you have to be able to pick something that excites you enough that you can breathe it every day.

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.

Once I get on a puzzle, I can't get off.

The time that I devote to painting is not a lot of time, but I do it 100 percent while I am working, and then there's nothing else that counts.

I'm an obsessive person. I like intensity.

When you want something enough, it brings out primal emotions. You get into this place of 'must happen, must happen.'

I can't really envision a time when I'm not shooting something.