Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" 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. "
William Klein
Uncomfortable
New York
Kind
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
William Klein
Know
America
Childhood
" You do things for yourself, and you do things for other people, and you hope that these things coincide. "
William Klein
Things
People
Hope
" If I didn't have to earn a living somehow, I would never have taken a fashion photograph in my life. "
William Klein
Never
Living
Life
" I like dark humor. I think the world is very funny and tragic, and my photographs are basically dark Jewish humor. "
William Klein
Dark
World
Funny
" Memories. That's the thing about photography. I look at the contact sheet, and it brings back everything: whether I was tired, whether I was full of beans. "
William Klein
Tired
Look
Photography
" My sister was brilliant: she was in the 25 top math students in the country. When she finished college, I said, 'Spend a couple of months here in Europe. You'll get another take on life.' She never came - married some schmuck who made clothes for fat women on Seventh Avenue. "
William Klein
Sister
Clothes
College
" I like the streets. I grew up in the streets. "
William Klein
Streets
Like
Grew
" If a film is a real knockout like 'Raging Bull,' it does not matter that it might not have happened like that. "
William Klein
Like
Matter
Real
" 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. "
William Klein
American
Happy
Hero
" I'm known for fashion photographs, but fashion photographs were mostly a joke for me. In 'Vogue,' girls were playing at being duchesses, but they were actually from Flatbush, Brooklyn. They would play duchesses, and I would play Cecil Beaton. "
William Klein
Play
Fashion
Brooklyn
" I discovered that I could do whatever I wanted with a negative in a darkroom and an enlarger. "
William Klein
Darkroom
Whatever
Wanted
" People didn't object to me taking their photo. It was something everybody thought was their due: to be King for a Day, win the lottery and be photographed. "
William Klein
Thought
Day
King
" When you use film, you use accidents, but there aren't any accidents with digital photography. I don't mind that it's easy. But I do mind that there is a sort of consensus with the camera and the subject and the light, and you look at something, and you photograph it, and you get what you see. "
William Klein
Look
Light
Camera
" 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
" I like film. I'm old fashioned. "
William Klein
Old
Like
Film
" My complaint is that Americans drive me crazy, and the politics drive me crazy. "
William Klein
Me
Complaint
Crazy
" Fashion was more of a sideline for me. I did it for the money. "
William Klein
Fashion
Me
More
" I'm an outsider, I guess. "
William Klein
Outsider
Guess
" Being an expatriate doesn't go down well in America. "
William Klein
Being
America
Down
" In the late Fifties and early Sixties, I used to think that most of these fashion creators weren't that great, and if the photograph was good, it was mostly thanks to the photographer. "
William Klein
Think
Early
Late
" I saw New York differently after being in Paris for a few years. "
William Klein
New
Years
Differently
" I thought it would be good not to hide the fact that you're taking a photograph, and have people react and come in close and also make a commentary on what's being photographed: 'This is a photo, this is my point of view.' "
William Klein
View
You
People
" 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. "
William Klein
Matter
Me
Know
" 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. "
William Klein
Miami
World
Good
" I wasn't part of any movement. I was working alone, following my instinct. "
William Klein
Working
Movement
Instinct
" 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. "
William Klein
Most
Look
Things
" I like festivals of all kinds: in 1969, I made a film about the first Pan-African festival in Algiers, which celebrated the countries that had been liberated 10 years earlier. There was a tremendous feeling of kinship. "
William Klein
Film
Feeling
Festivals
" Most of the other soldiers were older than me and sent money back to their families, so they were more prudent. "
William Klein
Money
Back
More
" 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. "
William Klein
Way
Me
People
" 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. "
William Klein
See
Results
Photography