It's not hard being great occasionally. It's difficult to be good consistently..

A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such ….

A portrait isn't a fact but an opinion - an occasion rather than a truth..

I always prefer to work in the studio. It isolates people from their environment. They become in a sense... symbolic of themselves. I often feel that….

And if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though ….

My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph..

You can't get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface. You can only get beyond the surface by working with ….

How many pictures have you torn up because you hate them? What ends up in your scrapbook? The pictures where you look like a good guy and a good fami….

I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no'….

Marilyn Monroe gave more to the still camera than any actress, any woman I've ever photographed; infinitely more patient, more demanding of herself a….

A portrait photographer depends upon another person to complete his picture. The subject imagined, which in a sense is me, must be discovered in some….

My photographs don't go below the surface. They don't go below anything. They're readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one ….

There was no such person as Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe was an invention of hers. A genius invention that she created, like an author creates a ch….

The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion..

My parents put the New Yorker in my crib. I saw Vogue and Vanity Fair around the house before I could read..

When I was a boy, my family took great care with our snapshots. We really planned them. We made compositions. We posed in front of expensive cars, ho….

If I could do what I want with my eyes alone, I would be happy..

I can see myself as a very old man in a terrific wheelchair. Only, I won't be photographing the tree outside my window, the way Steichen did. I'll be….

I see pictures of myself and I always knew that what I was feeling didn't look like that guy in the pictures..

I've photographed just about everyone in the world. But what I hope to do is photograph people of accomplishment, not celebrity, and help define the ….

Photography has always reminded me of the second child.. trying to prove itself. The fact that it wasn't really considered an art.. that it was consi….