Anton Corbijn
Anton Corbijn
Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaardis a Dutch photographer, music video director, and film director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2, having handled the principal promotion and sleeve photography for both bands for almost three decades. Some of his works include music videos for Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence", U2's "One", Bryan Adams' "Do I Have to Say the Words? and Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box", as well as the Ian Curtis biographical film...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth20 May 1955
Anton Corbijn quotes about
I do have an ego, but I acknowledge the help I get.
You always want to come back with an image that's interesting visually, and you hope to get something from the person you photograph that's different than other images you know of these people.
The only advantage of the CD is that you have a booklet that can tell a bit of a story, but the little covers are just boring. I love vinyl, and I have loads of it. It's the same thing as digital photography versus film photography. It's a quality thing.
My photography changed from being more documentary-like to arranging things more, and that came into being partly because I started doing music videos, and I incorporated some things from the music videos into my photography again, by arranging things more.
I've always thought photography was a bit of an adventure, so to come home with the film, develop it, then look at the results has more of a sense of excitement.
In 1979, I moved to England and photographed Joy Division and Bowie and Beefheart. At that time I got images that I felt had that special, well - power is a big word to say - more like intimacy and ambition that outlasted the photo shoot. I felt that they would have a longer life.
I have never understood models. I find it really hard to find beauty in that or to discover beauty because the beauty was so obvious.
If you make something with love and, you know, passion and you tell a real story, I think it will always find an audience somehow, you know.
I only make storyboards for action scenes. Once you make a storyboard, you don't film; it can be a stiff move.
When I was younger, I'd buy a vinyl album, take it home and live with it, and I think that attachment's largely gone for the file-sharing generation.
I think Amsterdam is to Holland what New York is to America in a sense. It's a metropolis, so it's representative of Holland, but only a part of it - you know, it's more extreme, there's more happening, it's more liberal and more daring than the countryside in Holland is.
Analog is more beautiful than digital, really, but we go for comfort.
With a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with 'The American' and 'Control' I managed to do that.
Film was something that I didn't see as a step up from music videos, though obviously, music videos, the fact that you work with a crew and a film camera, are the closest to film I've ever been. That is the only schooling I've ever had.