I didn’t see any difference between being a photographer or being an artist. I didn’t make those boundaries. If someone wants to think it’s art, that’s great, but I’ll let history decide.

My idea was that if I took a picture of somebody and years later, or whenever, they would die and if someone wanted to know who this person was, they could take one of these pictures and it would tell who the person was.

There is nothing ugly in sexuality or in the body. It's human!

Michael [Jackson] had paintings of himself at Neverland depicting himself as a knight and surrounded by cherubs and angels. People might think he's an egomaniac, but he's not. It's because the world turned against him.

The key is to photograph your obsessions, whether that’s old people’s hands or skyscrapers. Think of a blank canvas, because that’s what you’ve got, and then think about what you want to see. Not anyone else.

Pictures are an escape. They should be bigger than life. In the same way, celebrities provide an escape from the mundane. They are photographed so we can worship them - so they are worthy of our worship.

What's shocking is cruelty and torture, and that's become our entertainment. Kids can play violent video games, but God forbid they look at a naked woman. That's pornography, that's perverse. No!