William Klein Quotes

#1. I have always done the opposite of what I was trained to do ... Having little technical background, I became a photographer. Adopting a machine, I do my utmost to make it malfunction. For me, to make a photograph is to make an anti-photograph.

William Klein

#2. What would please me most is to make photographs as incomprehensible as life.

William Klein

#3. Sometimes, I'd take shots without aiming, just to see what happened. I'd rush into crowds - bang! bang! ... It must be close to what a fighter feels after jabbing and circling and getting hit, when suddenly there's an opening, and bang! Right on the button. It's a fantastic feeling.

William Klein

#4. I thought New York had it coming, that it needed a kick in the balls. When I returned to New York, I wanted to get even. Now I had a weapon, photography.

William Klein

#5. Be yourself. I much prefer seeing something, even it is clumsy, that doesn't look like somebody else's work.

William Klein

#6. I was a make believe ethnographer: treating New Yorkers like an explorer would treat Zulus - searching for the rawest snapshot, the zero degree of photography.

William Klein

#7. Anybody who pretends to be objective isn't realistic.

William Klein

#8. I came from the outside, the rules of photography didn't interest me ...

William Klein

#9. I have always loved the amateur side of photography, automatic photographs, accidental photographs with uncentered compositions, heads cut off, whatever. I incite people to make their self-portraits. I see myself as their walking photo booth.

William Klein

#10. It's as if your parents have to die before you really understand who they are.

William Klein