I think my moral ground is very much intact.
— Juergen Teller
I'm often in Venice in November and December, when it's foggy and wintry, and the decorations in the shops and the lights in the churches make the place feel both Christmassy and melancholic.
My childhood was very beautiful in some ways and very disturbing in others.
When I became a father, all that stuff rose up again from the back of my mind. I suddenly realised how uninvolved my father had been in my life.
I think it's really important to not be afraid of failure and to push yourself to try things and jump in the cold water.
You have a negative, and you can have an influence whether you want to have it more contrasty or less contrasty; you can pre-flash the photo paper. You can make it warmer or colder, lighter, darker. This is all a way of manipulating the image in a normal way, not changing the pixels.
I have a Mercedes. I wear a Rolex watch. I have no problem with the selling of things.
I would never ask somebody to do something where I felt that it's not right or it puts someone in an uncomfortable position.
I often photograph something as if the subject matter was realistic, but it is actually a fantasy.
Nudity is no big deal as a German. It's all rather normal and boring.
One day, I'll be photographing Kate Moss in Paris, then I'll be on Stephanie Seymour's ranch with her hundred horses wondering what exactly it is I'm doing there.
I never work with a screen. Other photographers have this black thing around, and they go back and look at it. I'd rather spend the time with the subject, photographing or discussing or talking, than staring at this thing. I'd rather look at what's going on.
Back in 2000, I didn't have a mobile phone.
I just really like women, and I like men, and I like children, and I like eating, and I like doing everything.
When I was a child, I always went to my grandmother's house in Nuremberg for Christmas. My uncle would leave the room, saying he needed the toilet, and then he would reappear dressed as Santa Claus. I was really scared - I'd have to go and hide behind an armchair.
Normally, whenever I try to photograph my mother, she is extremely impatient and will only stand for a minute and insists on knowing exactly what I'm doing.
My father never really encouraged me or even took an interest after I walked away from the family business. No one did except my mother and my grandfather. To be truthful, I cannot remember one meaningful conversation I had with my father.
I think the range of my life shows in my work.
I just want to do everything as good as I possibly can.
I'm interested in the person I photograph. The world is so beautiful as it is; there's so much going on, which is sort of interesting. It's just so crazy, so why do I have to put some retouching on it? It's just pointless to me.
Most fashion photography is done by gay people finding women sexy - which is sort of not sexy at all, at least to a heterosexual man.
