Top 79 Quotes & Sayings by David LaChapelle
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American photographer David LaChapelle.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
You work with people who are obsessive about shopping, obsessive about owning things and buying things, like this purchase is going to make them happy. And you want to say to them, 'You know, no amount of real estate is gonna fill that void.'
My mother taught me a lot about respect for all living things - for plants and animals. I am a vegetarian. I was brought up that way.
I love fashion, beauty, glamour. It's the mark of civilisation.
My dream since I was a kid was to show in a gallery.
I went to art high school and thought I'd be a painter. Unfortunately I didn't finish high school, but that's always been part of my work.
I moved to New York when I was 15, but my parents lived nearby in Connecticut, so I could go be in this incredible countryside when I needed it.
My mum was one of those people who really wasn't allowed to be an artist, because she worked in a factory and she came from the war and all that stuff. She really has an artist's soul.
I like the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas more than the actual one.
I have this idea that you can use glamour and still have it represent something that matters.
In the fashion world, I was always an outsider, but I made people look good, so I had a career.
With mania, is it dangerous to ride that euphoric feeling. You feel very animated and creative; I would fill journals with drawings. It feels good and you want it to last, but it can lead to being delusional. The delusions can be as real as you thinking you can fly.
I'm a photographer, period. I love photography, the immediacy of it. I like the craft, the idea of saying 'I'm a photographer.'
People get devalued in Hollywood when they age, despite all their efforts to stay relevant and beautiful and young. They can't get jobs anymore.
For me, it's easier to like more things than to dislike them; I'm not a critic in that sense. I find it easier to like more, to be more open and enjoy more things, which has given me more opportunities.
I was always painting when I was a kid. But then when I handled a camera when I was 17, that was it for me. I loved photography. I would work 4 or 5 hours a day. It was like a calling.
The adornment of the body is a human need. I don't see anything superficial about it unless your life becomes very materialistic.
There's nothing that symbolizes loss or grief more than a mother losing a child.
I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.
As you get older, you think about things differently from when you do in your twenties, when you think you'll live forever.
I believe in a visual language that should be as strong as the written word.
Just as Renaissance artists provided narratives for the era they lived in, so do I. I'm always looking beyond the surface. I've done that ever since I first picked up a camera.
Success to me is being a good person, treating people well.
The tools I learned photographing celebrities, now I want to use them to sell ideas.
We use fashion for status and to beautify and there's nothing wrong with that, but when it becomes completely unbalanced, then you're living a decadent life. And when that happens on a global scale, you're living in a decadent world.
I like the consistency of having people in my life for a long time.
I've never wanted to be part of an inner circle of any scene. I've always been an outsider looking to question and subvert.
I like thinking about the fragility of the human flesh and our bodies - our decay and eventual death.
I never want people to be repulsed with my pictures; I always want to attract people.
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.
You work with people who are obsessive about shopping, obsessive about owning things and buying things, like this purchase is going to make them happy. And you want to say to them, You know, no amount of real estate is gonna fill that void.
I wanted it to provide an escape route, I wanted to make pictures that were fantastic and took you into another world, one that was brighter. I started off with this idea.
I have no interest in being famous. I just want to make famous photographs.
I had this duality growing up with my dad being a strict Catholic and his brother being a priest and my mother finding God in nature, so I've taken a little from both [traditions].
As you are working on ideas, you are in a bubble, working on your images. What's important to me in my work, I like this idea of communicating through a piece of art so works don't have to be exchanged. They're okay and they're helpful but most importantly that the image will convey something in my mind that I was trying to communicate and then you have that connection.
My work is about making candy for the eyes. It's about grabbing your attention. Even though my work is appearing in magazines I am trying to make a large picture. I want my photographs to read like a poster.
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.
We have the ability to make the connection, make the time to pray and meditate. We have to find our inner voice that will guide us. But we can only find it if we get quiet.
My biggest advice would be to take the pictures you want to take. Don’t think about the marketplace, what sells or what an editor might say. And don’t think about style. It’s all bullshit and surface stuff. Style happens.
I believe Michael [Jackson] in a sense is an American martyr. Martyrs are persecuted and Michael was persecuted. Michael was innocent and martyrs are innocent. If you go on YouTube and watch interviews with Michael, you don't see a crack in the facade. There's this purity and this innocence that continued [throughout his life].
My pictures are about getting as far away from reality as possible. Dreams should be part of our everyday life.
As an artist you have a choice. You can add more confusion and darkness to the world or you can shine a light, make a beauty.
I shoot fantasy. If you want reality, ride the bus
The industrial revolution fueled all of humanity, everything we do has been exploding ever since. It's been the biggest most impacting thing, not only for human beings in the last 250 million years, but also the planet, which caused the ice age, which buried the forest. It's this circle because of the industrial revolution, it's neither good or bad, it enabled all of modernization, extended our life, it changed everything. It's the most impactful thing that happened to the planet and the people.
My work is about making candy for the eyes. It's about grabbing your attention.
I'm part of what I consider the entertainment industry. For my photos to be entertaining, they have to be provocative and new.
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.
You just do what you love, and then a style happens later on.
Prostitutes go to heaven. It's their clients that go to hell.
People say photographs don't lie, mine do.
I think we're in a post-pornographic time and nothing seems shocking, but everything remains carnal no matter what you do.
If you want reality take the bus.
Every culture has beauty and decorations of body. This is not of itself superficial, this is very human. Decorating when it becomes out of balance, when it becomes about the materialism, about how many shoes, how many handbags, how expensive they are, and the status, then it's no longer just about an expression or looking beautiful, that's more about 'I HAVE MONEY, I AM RICH'. It felt out of balance.
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.
I was working in this very bombastic style. I didn't really know about style. I didn't think about it: I did what I was interested in, what I was attracted to, what I was drawn to. I was drawn to color, and I was drawn to humor, and I was drawn to sexuality and spontaneity. It was all really intuitive. I never really thought, "Well this is the style...
The adornment of the body is a human need.
There are going to be people doing the talking and people who get talked about, choose, which one do you want to be?
There is nothing ugly in sexuality or in the body. It's human!
You can't change people's minds, we are not God. We can do our best to do what we do, whatever job we have to bring sort of goodness out there. But we can't change people. As an artist what I can do is to communicate!
I'll let criticism spoil breakfast, but I don't let it affect my lunch.
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.
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