Frames from the Edge Page #2

Sometimes I have to wear

shoe size 38,

when my real size

is 42, and I have to

run down the street

wearing a 38.

That's even worse!

Because it really hurts.

There is a pretty girl

with a denim jacket.

Would you describe yourself more

as a photographer or an artist?

I repeat what I always say

and what I said yesterday,

"There are two dirty words

in photography.

One is art,

and the other is good taste."

Are your works for sale?

And if yes, for how much?

Not through museums.

Museums are not the kind

of institutions

that sell photographs.

Of course

they are for sale.

For me,

everything is for sale.

It's just a question

of the price !

But... I do this

for a living.

I work because I love it and

because I love to make money.

Could you tell us

an approximate price?

A picture that is

thirty by forty centimeters

is about $1,000, approximately,

but I 'm not quite sure.

$1,000?

Yes, but many imitations are

circulating, well, you know.

I mean copies.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Helmut Newton is one of

the leading and most popular

fashion photographers

of our times.

His work goes beyond

fashion photography.

He very much influenced,

without any doubt,

the image of the world

as we know it today...

It's very tough.

Forgive me,

it's not always easy.

You know, when you make

a picture with Helmut,

you become a Newton,

that's the secret.

You become a graphic object,

and that's why I always

come back to this comparison

to a Matisse drawing.

He looks for

a certain shape,

and I believe you can only work

with him if you accept that.

Personally, when I make pictures

with a great photographer,

I 'd like the picture to be

typical for the photographer.

I don't care what it looks like,

good, cute, not cute,

ugly, flat, tired,

that's not what I focus on.

I focus on the personality

of the photographer

behind that picture.

You know, often fashion

photographers have

the complex of wanting to be

great portrait photographers.

They want to be great

but in different ways.

For me,

it all goes together.

Even Helmut's portraits reflect

the fashion of the time

which reflects

the spirit of the time as well.

That's why, for me,

Helmut is a great photographer.

I won't try to fit him into

a category, that would be silly.

I can't stand photographers

who come with huge staffs

and a ton of assistants.

He usually comes alone

or with one assistant,

and a small camera or two,

and everything happens

in a few seconds.

That makes it even more

difficult to take pictures

with others for ten hours

and have a mediocre out come.

I 'm thinking

of Madame Curie.

She did her thing

in her own kitchen

before working

in real laboratories.

With Helmut,

it's a little bit like that.

It's so,

maybe not homemade,

but physical,

his way of working.

I think that

the spontaneity of his images

which at the same time seem

so composed and sophisticated,

makes his work so different

from other photographers.

I recognize his style before

I even recognize the picture.

It has something violent,

always a little shocking,

and at the same time, baroque.

For me, it's

something very evident

and very secretive

at the same time.

There's one

that I like particularly,

I can't even really

tell you why.

There is the picture,

there is me in it,

and in the background

there's another Newton photo,

so there is a picture

in a picture

that's like

the mirror in the mirror.

I love that the picture

is complicated.

He took it at my place.

I think he's

the only photographer

that I would have ever

let come into my house

because I think the intimacy

of someone's home

is something

very important.

He has the right

to do that.

Yes, that's from

the same shooting.

Oh, yes!

That's a picture

that we stole.

When I say we stole it,

I mean that it was done

at the last minute

and it was done very quickly.

It was for the

New York Times Magazine,

for Yves Saint Laurent's

latest collection.

This one he made

very quickly in my car.

One has to know me well

to be able to take

a picture like this

in twenty minutes.

I love the aspect

of skin, clothes

and at the same time

this deep black that conceals

what needs to be concealed.

In Newton's pictures ,

the black is always

where it's supposed to be.

We always look for

an answer in a picture.

We hope that something

in the picture will give us

an answer to something or answer

the question you asked .

And Helmut's photos

always expose something

but remain mysterious

at the same time.

You always want to know more,

but they answer

your question in part.

That's why women

love them so much.

All our friends ask us what

we do all day in Monte Carlo.

We both answer that

the day is never long enough.

I get up at eight o'clock,

have breakfast on the terrace

in the summer, that is.

Then I read my mail

and make calls.

At noon we go down to

the hotel beach to swim,

have lunch there, and stay at

the beach until four o'clock.

I love the light here.

I'm not very comfortable with

photographing

in artificial light.

On the contrary,

I love to shoot in daylight.

Here, I have

the most wonderful light.

I can use the ocean

as a background

but there's so many different

backgrounds here.

I have a choice.

I am now 67 years old.

You know, I cannot live

in a big city anymore,

not in New York,

or in Paris.

That's why

I go back and forth

between Monte Carlo

and Los Angeles.

Hollywood is just like here,

only a little bigger.

The palm trees in Hollywood

are taller,

and there's more people,

but otherwise the spirit

is very much the same.

Open the windows.

The smell in here

makes me sick.

Open the windows, the smell

in here makes me sick.

I don't like to carry

too many cameras on me.

I'm not, as they say,

a professional

who loves hardware.

The less I carry,

the better it is for me.

It's all in here,

in the head, in the eye.

The lenses I use

are usually normal lenses,

in 85 - 90 percent

of the cases.

I work faster and

more efficiently like that.

I'm a professional voyeur.

But I'm not really interested in

the people that I photograph.

The girls, their private lives,

their character,

have no importance for me.

I am interested in

what is on the outside,

what I see,

what my camera sees.

People often tell me,

"You don't photograph the soul."

I say,

"What does that mean?"

I photograph a body,

a face.

I am interested in the face,

breasts, the legs,

and you can see that

in my pictures.

And you can also see,

I hope, a little more.

But the soul,

that I don't understand.

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