Peter Lindbergh

The photographer, even in fashion and portraiture, has to have a standpoint. It's important to know what you stand for, no? Most people just take pictures, but they stand for nothing. They follow trends and don't know why.

The most important part of fashion photography, for me, is not the models; it's not the clothes. It's that you are responsible for defining what a woman today is. That, I think, is my job.

Women must be freed from the idea that they always have to stay young and that they must disfigure themselves at a certain age.

I thought fashion was just the pretext to do images with lots of freedom and get them published in magazines. You could express your point of view, make statements about women and about what you believe in.

People think that it is important to learn by assisting the great photographers. I say that is a big mistake. Be happy; just learn from any little guy. Learn how to use the camera - you don't need anything else. You can't be taught the real skill anyway.

If photographers are responsible for creating or reflecting an image of women in society, then, I must say, there is only one way for the future, and this is to define women as strong and independent. This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.

Fashion photography should say something about the stability of a certain time you live in or what kind of women you like. The most interesting thing is not what they're wearing but who they are.

Photography gives you the opportunity to use your sensibility and everything you are to say something about and be part of the world around you. In this way, you might discover who you are, and with a little luck, you might discover something much larger than yourself.

My feeling is that for years now it has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined today. Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century.