All my photographs are about meetings and about coups de foudre - love at first sight. To do that type of photography, one must wipe the canvas clean to prepare for chance encounters, be open and aware to such moments, otherwise it becomes a cliché - already seen and expected.

There is a word we haven't used yet: virginity... To make a photograph, the plate must be virgin, but your eye as well.

Because I know war... because I know the horror, I don't want to add to it. .........After the war, we felt the need to celebrate life, and for me photography was the means to achieve this.

A photographer is a witness. He has a moral duty. Every picture must be true and honest. I believe a photographer's strength is his ability to accurately record reality. There are photographers who think they are lucky if they find unusual or special subject. But it is never the subject that is so marvelous. It is how alive and real the photographer can make it.

In some way, a photo is like a stolen kiss. In fact a kiss is always stolen, even if the woman is consenting. With a photograph it's the same: always stolen, and still slightly consenting.

All my photographs are about meetings and about coups de foudre - love at first sight. To do that type of photography, one must wipe the canvas clean to prepare for chance encounters, be open and aware to such moments, otherwise it becomes a cliché - already seen and expected.

To me, photography is like a quest, or a pilgrimage, or a hunt. I love painting, I love music, but photography is what has allowed me to get outside of myself.