Henry Rollins Quotes

The intensive use of photographs by mass media lays ever fresh responsibilities upon the photographer. We have to acknowledge the existence of a chasm between the economic needs of our consumer society and the requirements of those who bear witness to this epoch. This affects us all, particularly the younger generations of photographers. We must take greater care than ever not to allow ourselves to be separated from the real world and from humanity.

Photograph the world as it is. Nothing's more interesting than reality.

I don't have lights, I don't have assistants, I just go and meet somebody and take a photograph. That's really basic, and that's how I used to work when I was 17 or 18 in Holland.

When I started, there was something almost romantic about the notion of paparazzi. I mean, it wasn't. They were still chasing you down the road. But that guy had to put film in his camera and work out whether it was worth pressing the button to take the shot, otherwise he's got to stop and change the film. So it was like this age of innocence.

I've always wanted to be aware of what's going on around me, and I've wanted to use photography as an instrument of research into and reporting on the life of my own time.

I was out there with the White House press squad, and after his helicopter took off, and the carpet rolled up...This wasn't a photograph that others were taking, but I continued to take pictures.

If you are walking down the street, camera in your hand, loaded and ready to shoot. You see a person falling from a high building, either having fallen or jumped. That person is falling through space. You don't shoot that photograph unless the theme you are working on has to do with the effects of space on the human figure. If you simply photograph that event because it is an event that is happening, you're doing photojournalism.

I'm not trying to be in your face and take a picture that is like a journalistic kind of image. I got interested in a kind of complicated, compiled, visual field.

I took photos from 1976 to when I left in 1993, primarily for Interview and a column I had called "Bob Colacello's Out" which Andy had conceived of. I've never taken a picture since, not even with my phone! It just felt too Andy Warhol to keep going around town taking photographs. And I never really thought of doing anything with them after I left the magazine until this great Art Director Sam Shahid about for or five years ago asked where all of the old photos were.

I try not to be spectacular with the camera. I try to be a witness of what's going on.

I know when somebody is trying to get something out of me for clicks. And sometimes I feel like giving it to them. Sometimes I feel like being real and open to them, but at the same time, I know how much I can give you.

I see things going on before my eyes and I photograph them as they are, without trying to change them. I don't warn people beforehand. That's why I'm a chronicler. I speak about us and I speak about myself.

You can go into all sorts of situations with a camera and people will think they should serve it.

The major adventure is to claim your authentic, true being, which is not culturally given to you. The culture will not explain to you how to be a real human being. It will tell you how to be banker, politician, Indian chief, masseuses, actress, whatever, but it will not give you true being.

Alot of peo­ple think our lives are all about tak­ing pic­tures and stuff like that. But it becomes a real bother when they're tak­ing pic­tures of you all the time.

You know, a documentary is only interesting once in a while. If you look at a whole book of Dorothea [Lange]'s where she has row after row of people bending over and digging out carrots - that can be very tedious. And so it's only once in a while that something happens that is worth doing.

Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.

I'm planning, you see, to try to confine myself to the truth. That's hard for an old, inveterate fantasy martyr and liar who has never hesitated to give truth the form he felt the occasion demanded.

People who can give themselves every day. They're the people that I admire, they're real people.

God offers authentic LOVE. His devotion is the real deal. But He won't give you the genuine until you surrender the imitations.

Real people are actively trying to live like fake people, so real people are no less fake. Every comparison becomes impractical. This is why the impractical has become totally acceptable; impracticality almost seems cool.

What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this. I don't want people to look at them and appreciate the light and the palate of tones. I want them to look inside and see what the pictures represent, and the kind of people I photograph.

I live a real life so I forget to take pictures.

There's this thing that publishes pictures of people out and about. So when I go out, I do see pictures of myself. I don't know where those pictures come from - I mean, I don't see the cameras. But I guess I'm just not looking for them.

To ask people's permission to take their pictures? Sometimes it feels right to ask, but I will not ask, unless it is essential to do so. If you asked all the time, you would miss everything. With the exception of portraits, it is generally bad news if people are looking at the camera.