Challenging Subjects Quotes

I was very willing to take on controversial roles that people didn't really want to look at.

There's that rule, don't work with kids and animals. There's a reason for that!

It's what I do well - I write about things that make people uncomfortable. That's probably the only thing I do better than my peers.

Photography - the supreme form of travel, of tourism - is the principal modern means for enlarging the world. As a branch of art, photography's enterprise of world enlargement tends to specialize in the subjects felt to be challenging, transgressive. A photograph may be telling us: this too exists. And that. And that. (And it is all 'human.') But what are we to do with this knowledge - if indeed it is knowledge, about, say, the self, about abnormality, about ostracized or clandestine worlds?

I'm trying to talk about challenging subjects people might not like and trying to find relief as we discuss it.

Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult.

You are not thinking hard enough if you are sleeping well. And you would have to be unhinged to take on a subject like the French Revolution, or Rembrandt, and not feel some trepidation. There is always the possibility that you will crash and burn, and the whole thing will be a horrible, vulgar, self-indulgent mess.

That difficult place to put your finger on about the world - it needs to be illustrated.

Some things in life are not pleasant but they have to be done. For instance, German and maths.

People think: 'If this photographer's looking like a big jerk-off, maybe it's okay if I do.' I like to catch my subjects off balance a bit.

I usually look for stories with barriers to entry, something complex enough that no one else is going to do it.