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
For many years I wanted to do a film, but I never had the courage to clear my desk and say, 'OK I'll take a year off and do a film.'
It's so easy for people to stick a label on you, and then that taints everything you touch.
I wanted to move away from Holland for my work because I felt that things would be better for me in England. But when I heard Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures', that pushed me towards making the move and making it real. I met them within 12 days of moving to England.
I wanted to make a film as an artist, and it's going to have to find an audience, you know. I don't know how big the audience will be.
Working with actors is something I've never done before. I find it tremendous. It's hard work.
There are some elements of digital photography that I don't really like, such as the fact that you see the results immediately.
A lot of scripts that I was given I didn't feel were right for me, because I didn't feel anything for them - I didn't feel like I was going to change in life and start directing.
Once you make decisions, you can't go back, but in photography, that process can continue. With film, you have to eliminate all the possibilities and make the one possibility work the best for you, so you have to become very creative with the direction you've chosen.
For me N.M.E. was a very big thing. When I first came to the United Kingdom I started taking pictures for them and I became their main photographer for five years, and that's really been the basis of everything I've been doing since.
My world is much bigger than music, and that's why I always fight the 'rock' label.
I had no agent, and I was getting approached by so many people that I tried to escape for a while because I couldn't believe that world. Photography is not an industry, and suddenly an industry came to me, so I sort of had to accept it in the end and get an agent.
I'm not totally blind to the fact that I like people to see my work, but if it's not something I would enjoy seeing in a magazine, then I think I shouldn't be making it. I think that I don't represent only myself, I represent more people; I mean, if I like it, then I think more people will like it because I think I'm quite a normal guy.
I feel a responsibility to myself, and not so much for the world at large. Because of my Calvinistic upbringing, I was trained to think that what you do has to have a purpose.
I don't want to continue to do what I did when I was 20. I would like to continue to develop myself and not continue to hang around with bands.