I have always avoided photographing in the studio. A woman does not spend her life sitting or standing in front of a seamless white paper background. Although it makes my life more complicated, I prefer to take my camera out into the street... and places that are out of bounds for photographers have always had a special attraction for me.

I like photographing women who appear to know something of life. I recently did a session with a great beauty, a movie star in in her thirties. I photographed her twice within three weeks and the second time I said: "You're much more beautiful today than you were three weeks ago." And she replied: "But I'm also three weeks older.

Some people's photography is an art. Not mine. Art is a dirty word in photography. All this fine art crap is killing it already.

What I find interesting is working in a society with certain taboos and fashion photography is about that kind of society. To have taboos, then to get around them that is interesting.

The point of my photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to.

It's that I don't like white paper backgrounds. A woman does not live in front of white paper. She lives on the street, in a motor car, in a hotel room.

In the photographs themselves there's a definite contrast between the figures and the location - I like that kind of California backyard look; clapboard houses, staircases outdoors.