Mario Testino Quotes
A lot of photographers like models to be blank canvases - but bland girls don't influence me. I don't like playing with dolls; I like playing with people.
Mario Testino
Quotes to Explore
To me, the magic of photography, per se, is that you can capture an instant of a second that couldn't exist before and couldn't exist after. It's almost like a cowboy that draws his gun. You draw a second before or after, you miss and you're dead - not them. To me, photography's always like that.
Mario Testino
When I had photographed Prince William's mother, I brought along a CD of Dalida, a French singer, that we played on set all day to relax everyone. I decided to do the same thing for Catherine and William. The contrast of the contemporary informal music playing in the beautiful rooms with so much history caused a lot of laughter.
Mario Testino
Fine artists reflect, and then they act. Fashion photographers - we act, and then we reflect.
Mario Testino
I don't like a tormented photograph. Something attracts you in them, but the attraction isn't because she has a pot on her head or tonnes of make-up and weird clothes and weird everything.
Mario Testino
There's a particular style that is very Peru that you don't see anywhere else; it's got so many different imprints. When you mix Incan minimalism with the heavy, ornate Spanish Baroque, it is very interesting.
Mario Testino
Many people when I started didn't believe I was a good fashion photographer, and probably they still think that.
Mario Testino
Some of my friends say that I only talk about myself. But it is funny: my house is covered in art but with nothing of my own, and when I'm working, I'm only thinking about what the client wants. So I don't see it that way, but maybe it's true. I mean, they are my friends.
Mario Testino
However spontaneous I hope a photograph will look, I always put a lot of thought into how I can make it happen. The very best pictures are the most relaxed, so a lot of fussing around technically can completely break the spell, and everyone freezes up with nerves.
Mario Testino
Ultimately, I made my range wider because I wanted to suit each publication that I worked for. Talk about reinvention - I'm like the Madonna of photography.
Mario Testino
I never notice a difference between photographing a man and a woman; for me, it's just somebody.
Mario Testino
In the South America of the forties and fifties, everyone was into beauty and glamour and fashion.
Mario Testino
A fashion photographer is nothing without clothes and hair and makeup. And when I speak to other photographers, a lot of them can't reference a picture by the designer. Me, I say, 'The Balenciaga.' And I go to the shows. I feel like it's my business.
Mario Testino
Grunge came from a group of English photographers, and they were documenting their own reality... I'm South American - we celebrate life.
Mario Testino
When I see Kate Moss out and about, I think she looks more beautiful than when her hairdresser and make-up artist try and make her look like something else. And I remember when Madonna first asked Versace to book me to shoot a campaign with her, she came to see me wearing hardly any make-up, and she looked incredible.
Mario Testino
Charm, I think, is education, really, no? I was educated to be nice to everybody. If you want to be rude and mean, I'm sure your life isn't that nice.
Mario Testino
When you're nice, people like you and will want to work with you. But it can mean that they take you for granted.
Mario Testino
Even someone as photographed and aware of the camera as members of the royal family needs to feel completely comfortable if they are to look their best.
Mario Testino
You have to be you. You can't be anybody else. If you speak loudly, and people tell you to speak quietly, you can do it for a little bit, but loud people are loud, and people who are not, are not.
Mario Testino
