Peter Lindbergh Quotes

I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class.

I'm still learning and I'm still growing as a photographer.

I'm a very, very basic photographer. The main strength of my pictures, I guess, is the mood and feel I get out of the people that I meet. But technically I don't think I'm very advanced. That never interested me.

The difference between an amateur and a professional photographer is that the amateur thinks the camera does the work. And they treat the camera with a certain amount of reverence. It is all about the kind of lens you choose, the kind of film stock you use… exactly the sort of perfection of the camera. Whereas, the professional the real professional – treats the camera with unutterable disdain. They pick up the camera and sling it aside. Because they know it’s the eye and the brain that count, not the mechanism that gets between them and the subject that counts.

The next time you pick up a camera think of it not as an inflexible and automated robot, but as a flexible instrument which you must understand to properly use. An electronic and optical miracle creates nothing on its own! Whatever beauty and excitement it can represent exist in your mind and spirit to begin with.

You become technically proficient whether you want to or not, the more you take pictures.

The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it.

It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.

I had no training in research as such, and as a consequence, I am, in a sense, self-taught.

I've always had better luck learning things on my own. And I really love the challenge of doing it yourself and kind of being alone against the system.

I know a lot of people who are very good at their craft who have learned - people behind the camera - who really have a lot to offer because they know what they're doing, they know what to do, they've made their mistakes.

I'm not a trained actor. I'm someone who is autodidactic and learned on my own.

One of the first things I learned about acting was, the only person you compete against is yourself.

When I buy a Nikon camera, I have no tolerance for the instructions. I'm ready to make some mistakes using it and get some bad pictures back until I've figured it out for myself.

You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.

Those who want to be serious photographers, you're really going to have to edit your work. You're going to have to understand what you're doing. You're going to have to not just shoot, shoot, shoot. To stop and look at your work is the most important thing you can do.

Many people when I started didn't believe I was a good fashion photographer, and probably they still think that.

As an actress, I never went to film school, and I think if I had gone to film school, I would have started with a great advantage. If you have a strong intent to do anything in life, you can do it, but it always helps to have formal training.

The Self-Educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities.

The problem for me is that I've never actually studied photography, so it's quite a steep learning curve. Cameras these days do so much for you automatically but I still think there's a point where you should actually know the technical side.

I don't see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, 'I'ma do that,' and they do it. That's it. There's no scientifical process.

Well, in order for me to be successful... In order to be a great artist - musician, actor, painter, whatever - you must be able to be private in public at all times.

I like to learn on my own.

I think a lot of people have grown up with the idea that they can't learn things themselves. They think they need an institution to provide them with knowledge and teach them how to do things. I couldn't disagree more.

Whether you're playing sports, starting a business or anything else in life, you need to identify your talents. Your responsibility is to find what you do better than anyone else. Once you identify what that is, you need to put yourself in the best position to succeed.