William Klein

This is William Klein’s “Contacts Vol. 1, Portraits of Contemporary Photographers”.

It is rare to hear a great photographer, talking about their contact sheets and work in such an illuminating manner. For more information on Klein visit http://www.masters-of-photography.com/K/klein/klein.html

Here are two thought provoking qoutes from the man….

“Be yourself. I much prefer seeing something, even it is clumsy, that doesn’t look like somebody else’s work.” William Klein

“I used the wide-angle lens as a normal lens. I had no philosophy about it. When I looked in the viewfinder and realized I could see all the contradictions and confusion that was there with the wide-angle — that was what was great… I’d had a Rolleiflex with different lenses, I wouldn’t have cropped that much. I had no compunction about cropping, because I did my own layouts…[And] I’d use anything in printing. Throw cyanide, white out over things. I approached photography a little bit like a painter would play with a lithograph, fooling around, pouring milk, tea, anything on it. It was the sort of thing that anybody with any sort of strict, classic photographic training would have qualms about. But I had no qualms at all about doing things with photography. First of all, I had no knowledge of it, and I couldn’t care less, because I thought the whole photographic world was alien.” William Klein (via Lens Culture)