Juergen Teller

“When you're a kid, what you learn in school about being German has a sort of heaviness about it, and you have a sort of guilt with you.”

“When you have your own kid, it suddenly makes you more aware of how your parents treated you and educated you. Your relationships with your partner, your uncles, your mother all change; you're more conscious of where you came from, of where your roots are. I find that very interesting.”

“In Germany, the body is treated rather differently than in the U.K. or U.S. I grew up with a swimming pool in our garden and a sauna in our basement.”

“Most fashion photography is done by gay people finding women sexy - which is sort of not sexy at all, at least to a heterosexual man.”

“I like the idea that things can exist in different formats - in a gallery, a fashion ad, in books.”

“I am someone who takes pleasure in exploring the full scale of the medium photography. I am a photographer.”

“What's the point of shorts if they're not short?”

“I like physical exercise. I cycle, run, and play tennis and football with my son.”

“I would be lost without my family.”

“I don't care what other people think. I hate conforming, that you have to wear this to a business meeting or that to a dinner. I've never worked that way.”

“If I do a portrait, I know what they can take. If somebody's a sweet, shy person, the photographs will be sweet and shy. Of course, you ask people to do something which they might not have done before, but that's the journey, the fun element.”

“I often photograph something as if the subject matter was realistic, but it is actually a fantasy.”

“You have a negative, and you can have an influence whether you want to have it more contrasty or less contrasty; you can pre-flash the photo paper. You can make it warmer or colder, lighter, darker. This is all a way of manipulating the image in a normal way, not changing the pixels.”

“I like the luxurious, dressing-up aspect of fashion.”

“My father never really encouraged me or even took an interest after I walked away from the family business. No one did except my mother and my grandfather. To be truthful, I cannot remember one meaningful conversation I had with my father.”

“In order to do something really good, you have to take risks - that's what I do.”

“I like Ryan McGinley's work.”

“I'm not interested in running around from one shoot to another.”

“I like friendship.”

“My childhood was very beautiful in some ways and very disturbing in others.”