The surrealism of my pictures was nothing but the real made eerie by vision. I was trying to express reality, for there is nothing more surrealist.

The precise instant of creation is when you choose the subject. (meaning that the essential thing occurs at the moment when he, the photographer, meets the reality he wishes to capture.

The wall, safe haven for what is forbidden, gives a voice to all those who would, without it, be condemned to silence

If you take your inspiration from nature, you don't invent anything, because what you want to do is to interpret something. But still, everything passes throught your imagination. What you produce at the end is very different from the reality you started with.

After twenty years you can begin to be sure of what camera will do.

... we photographers are nothing but a pack of crooks, thieves and voyeurs. We are to be found everywhere we are not wanted; we betray secrets that were never entrusted to us; we spy shamelessly on things that are not our business; And end up the hoarders of a vast quantity of stolen goods.

Photography in our time leaves us with a grave responsibility. While we are playing in our studios with broken flowerpots, oranges, nude studies and still lifes, one day we know that we will be brought to account: life is passing before our eyes without our ever having seen a thing.