"My work is always about me, just like your work is always about you. I am a storyteller. I've never been interested in just taking the single image and moving on. I always like to stay with the people I'm photographing for long periods of time."
"I've told people my lesson for photography. I tell people to frame the picture. Make the greatest, most perfect composition you can . . . and then take a step forward. It skews it a bit and makes it more interesting."
"It's interesting because we were coming out of the 1950s, and that was such a repressed time. I think I started making photographs in reaction to that. "Why can't you show everything?" "Why do people pull their punches?" There were great photo essays in LIFE magazine, but they always stopped at a certain place. There was always a place where everybody stopped. It was just a rule. For me there are no rules. I think I learned that from artists-from painters and sculptors. It took photography a while to catch up to them."
"You know I always shot with black and white, I start shooting color in the 90’s when I started shooting skate kids. Because I had been in a dark room since I was teenager, I was sick of the dark room. I had to get out of the dark room, so I switched to the color photography, because if you shoot with color, you can take it to the drug store and 24 hours later, you can get little prints. So it was not really an aesthetic choice, I was just sick of being in a dark room, and you see in color anyway."
"I am always shooting against the light. So you see the light, you see the light source, you see the window, you see where the light comes from."
"Because photography to me, is about light and feeling, and you can do so much with that."
"I have never sold out, and I never will. And I do not do any commercial photographs. I do not do any campaigns. [I had] lots of dollars offered for campaigns, and I laughed at them, “fuck you”. I am not going to do that. So, I guess I am an artist, because I have always felt the reason I am here is to make work, and I only care about making work, and making art. I am always moving forward, doing new work. And as I do new work, people don’t get it, they think, “what the fuck is Larry is doing?” They don’t get it, but they will get it, they will catch up, I am always ahead."
"I cut out my own territory. It’s my territory. I think it’s just to try and make work that reflects real life. The way real life is. That is what I’m trying to do. I try to be honest, honest with people, and make honest work."
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PHOTO GALLERY
© Larry Clark
