Anton Corbijn
Anton Corbijn
Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaardis a Dutch photographer, music video director, and film director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2, having handled the principal promotion and sleeve photography for both bands for almost three decades. Some of his works include music videos for Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence", U2's "One", Bryan Adams' "Do I Have to Say the Words? and Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box", as well as the Ian Curtis biographical film...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth20 May 1955
Anton Corbijn quotes about
My biggest fear always is that I’ll photograph an idea rather than a person, so I try to be quite sensitive to how people are.
It's only when people get involved, when there's money involved, that you have a lot opinions around you. I try not to listen to them too much.
I think if you don't feel passionate about the first movie you're doing, in the end the project will lack something because you don't have enough experience to make the movie something special.
I am a village boy, and Amsterdam for me was always the big town.
Apart from photography and music videos, I also do graphic design.
The really simple approach to photography is a great balance to making the films.
I never really enjoyed getting a portfolio together then sending it out; whereas, putting up the website is quite an enjoyable experience. The net's just a much faster and more modern way to distribute things, and you have to embrace it.
My life changed incredibly when I moved from Holland to England.
I feel that when I shoot anything, and I have something beautiful, I just move on.
I don't think I treat my film work as an extension of my photography. There are two different sets of rules there.
There's a lot about records that you cannot feel from a CD.
My photography is very European. In America, I always get the sense that people are comforted by understanding what they're looking at. Photography's quite clear here [in the U.S.], it's very well-explained. My photography's perhaps not as well-explained.
With photography, you are lucky if you get people to look at your pictures at some point. There's no formal way to show them.
I have such a love of good music that I find even melancholic music uplifting. Maybe I'm a rare breed.