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" French photography was basically poetic, and mine was vulgar and brash and violent, except that there's never any violence in the photographs: it's only in the photographic style. "
William Klein
Never
Violence
Photography
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" The best critics of America are Americans. "
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" If I look back, I think most of the things I did - the films, the books, the collaborations with these magazines - were mostly by accident. "
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" As a kid, I wanted to be part of the Lost Generation who came to France. "
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" I thought it would be a good idea to look at New York with this half-European, half-native eye and really do something to get back at this city that I thought really gave me a hard time when I grew up. "
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" My grandfather and his wife came to America at the end of the 19th century from Hungary. Everyone started out on the Lower East Side. They became embourgeoise and would move to the Upper West Side. Then, if they'd make money, they'd move to Park Avenue. Their kids would become artists and move down to the Lower East Side and the Village. "
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" I grew up in New York, in a rough neighborhood where our biggest concern was not getting beat up. I was always far from the center of the Big Apple. "
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New York
Always
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" For my first book, 'New York,' I had one camera and two lenses. It was fotografia povera. "
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Book
Two
New York
" I wasn't part of any movement. I was working alone, following my instinct. "
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Working
Movement
Instinct
" I always dreamt of becoming an artist in Paris. Thanks to the Army, it happened. "
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" I didn't really know who Cassius Clay was. I just wanted to show America through a heavyweight championship fight. Ever since my childhood, I'd been fascinated by the way the whole country becomes polarised around this event. "
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Know
America
Childhood
" This is supposed to be the Big Apple, with neighborhoods where the houses are all good-looking and the skyscrapers and everything. But to me, New York is kind of shoddy and uncomfortable. "
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Uncomfortable
New York
Kind
" I like the streets. I grew up in the streets. "
William Klein
Streets
Like
Grew
" I had no real respect for good technique because I didn't know what it was. I was self-taught, so that stuff didn't matter to me. "
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Matter
Me
Know
" I think that Damien Hirst putting a shark in a bath of formaldehyde is nothing. "
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Think
I Think
Bath
" I find it satisfying that what I've done in photography has had so much influence in how people take photographs and what they look at and how they look at things. "
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Influence
Photography
People
" I like film. I'm old fashioned. "
William Klein
Old
Like
Film
" My way of living and working is that I'll do my thing. I went from one thing to another. That annoyed people. They didn't know how to categorize me. "
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Way
Me
People
" I discovered that I could do whatever I wanted with a negative in a darkroom and an enlarger. "
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Darkroom
Whatever
Wanted
" I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years. "
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New
Years
Differently
" When I made 'Polly Maggoo,' it was more or less the end of this collaboration with 'Vogue' because I made a caricature of the editor-in-chief and the fashion people, so they didn't really adore me. "
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Fashion
Me
People
" I grew up in Manhattan. For Manhattanites, Brooklyn was the sticks, a second-rate civilization. My friends and I, we were so snobby. Living in the Bronx or Brooklyn was incredible... for me, that was like a foreign country. "
William Klein
Brooklyn
Country
Friends
" In fashion, you have assistants, flashes; you can make sets. There are people running around doing things for you. But I can take it or leave it. "
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Doing
Fashion
You
" I had an experience that was kind of backward. Instead of thinking that photography was a step down, it brought me a step up, to transpose and modify things. "
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Step
Me
Down
" Don't have rules, taboos, or limits. "
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Taboos
Limits
Rules
" I was a very clumsy Jewish kid. "
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Clumsy
Very
Jewish
" The digital camera takes photographs in practically no light: it will dig out the least bit of light available. I was amazed to see the results of photographs that I wouldn't take ordinarily. That's the advantage of digital photography. "
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See
Results
Photography
" I did a film on Muhammad Ali before he was champion. I was there when he became champion in 1964. I was happy to be able to document the development of a real American hero. "
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American
Happy
Hero
" My father was like Willy Loman, you know: he never really made it - and he was from a family where there were people who had made it. "
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Family
You
Never
" I was 24 years old at the time. I had no real notion of what photography was about. I had no training. By accident, I put a negative in an enlarger, and you can do many things with that negative. "
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Photography
Training
Negative
" I was making a film on Muhammad Ali in 1964, and I went to Miami to film everything around the fight for the world championship with Sonny Liston. I had the good luck of flying down to Miami, and there was one empty seat, and the guy sitting next to this empty seat was Malcolm X. "
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Miami
World
Good