Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpewas an American photographer, known for his sensitive yet blunt treatment of controversial subject-matter in the large-scale, highly stylized black and white medium of photography. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits and still-life images of flowers. His most controversial work is that of the underground BDSM scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s of New York. The homoeroticism of this work fuelled a national debate over the public funding...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth4 November 1946
CountryUnited States of America
Robert Mapplethorpe quotes about
To make pictures big is to make them more powerful
If I am at a party, I want to be at the party. Too many photographers use the camera to avoid participating in things. They become professional observers.
I don't like that particular word 'shocking.' I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before … I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them.
The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
When I have sex with someone I forget who I am. For a minute I even forget I'm human. It's the same thing when I'm behind a camera. I forget I exist.
I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today's existence.
Beauty and the devil are the same thing.
If I had been born one or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make sculpture.
I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the photographs when you hold them in your hand.
I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It's always little altars.
I don't know why my pictures come out looking so good. I just don't get it.
You're never going to get anywhere in life if you don't live up to your obligations.
With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing.
People don't have time to wait for somebody to paint their portraits anymore. The money is in photography.