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Mario Testino Quotes

Powerful Mario Testino for Daily Growth

My favourite words are possibilities, opportunities and curiosity. I think if you are curious, you create opportunities, and then if you open the doors, you create possibilities.

- Mario Testino

Think, Possibilities, Create

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

Like, Make-Up, Them, Pot

There is something about Prince William and Prince Harry that brings real modernity to the British royal family. They are also very open, human, and kind, and this is what I have tried to capture in the pictures I have taken of them as well as in my pictures of Prince William and Catherine.

- Mario Testino

Very, About, Harry, Royal Family

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

Feel, Needs, Photographed, Royal Family

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

Magic, Gun, Before, Per

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

I Remember, I Think, Make-Up, Hairdresser

I've always had an affinity with women. It probably started with my mother when I was young, but it was intensified by my sister, Elena, who is one year older than me. I used to hang out with her all the time, and whenever I travelled, I used to buy her clothes and style her.

- Mario Testino

Young, Year, Hang, Intensified

In the South America of the forties and fifties, everyone was into beauty and glamour and fashion.

- Mario Testino

Beauty, South America, South, Glamour

Being Peruvian means to come from the farthest place possible to get to Europe. Peru is the land of the Incas. It was the capital of South America; it was where the Spanish founded their empire and took over the Inca Empire and made it into a colony of Spain.

- Mario Testino

Spain, Capital, Colony, South America

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

Like, Madonna, Wider, Publication

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

Peru, Very, Anywhere, Baroque

Some people strive for perfection, but I often find perfection boring.

- Mario Testino

Strive, Boring, Some, Perfection

I have no real training in the history of fine art or furniture; my eye just works by proportions. I react intuitively. In London, it's all about color because the weather is so gray, and in that cold light they look beautiful.

- Mario Testino

Color, London, Works, Proportions

I studied law, economy, international relations, communications, in order to find what I would do. It's the hardest thing, being 17 and trying to find what to do in life. You've explored so little. I'm lucky: My parents let me explore.

- Mario Testino

Lucky, The Hardest Thing, Relations

My favourite subjects at school were algebra and logic: making a big problem into something small.

- Mario Testino

Small, Big, Making, Algebra

Grunge came from a group of English photographers, and they were documenting their own reality... I'm South American - we celebrate life.

- Mario Testino

Celebrate, Grunge, South, Documenting

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

Thought, Very, However, Spontaneous

At the beginning of my career, as a boy from Peru in London, suddenly discovering British culture and society, I looked so much at the work of the photographers Cecil Beaton and Norman Parkinson, which seemed to represent a wonderful vanished grandeur of my new country.

- Mario Testino

Career, London, Country, Norman

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

Will, Like, Take, Nice People

A photograph can make you feel so many different things. When you look at war photographs of Vietnam, or something similar, it makes you feel anguish and sadness and pain. Then in other moments, when you look at Jackie Kennedy walking down Fifth Avenue, that makes you feel glory and richness.

- Mario Testino

Sadness, Feel, Other, Different Things

I find that my entire life has come to me, and things happened without me planning them. You know, I never asked to photograph Princess Diana, and that made me more famous than I wanted. I never asked to photograph Madonna, and that pushed me to another level. There are things that just take you into the limelight.

- Mario Testino

Life, Another, Entire, Limelight

I said to my mother, 'When you see my name in 'Vogue,' I will have arrived.'

- Mario Testino

Mother, See, Arrived, Vogue

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

Own, Some, Maybe, Client

At the end of the '90s, I was very bored with the usual models, so I discovered a new generation that impressed me with their fresh look. I still keep working with models like Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss, and I am still looking for new, interesting faces. Life is about discovery, and you should never stop searching.

- Mario Testino

Discovered, Very, Impressed, Fresh

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

Singer, Rooms, Brought, French

At one moment, I thought that if I didn't do a picture in a certain way, then it wasn't a 'Mario Testino Picture.' And I've realized that Mario Testino is everything, Mario Testino is whatever he feels like being, because it always ends up looking like me, whatever I do.

- Mario Testino

Thought, Certain Way, Feels, Mario

I never notice a difference between photographing a man and a woman; for me, it's just somebody.

- Mario Testino

Woman, Me, Never, Notice

My original idea was to photograph Princess Diana in her tiara. But then I thought, am I interested in seeing another picture of her as a royal person, or would I rather see what she is actually about? And that's why I decided to do her without jewels, without shoes, without trimmings.

- Mario Testino

Thought, Idea, Rather, Jewels

Oh my God, the graduate shows in London are so important! I still remember going to see John Galliano's graduate collection - that was an event I'll never forget.

- Mario Testino

London, Still, Oh My God, Graduate

There are never any absolutes in the fashion business: one day you may like black, and the next day you like colour. I think it's a good lesson that we should never believe too much in any one thing - because the next day it's out, and if we're stuck to it, we're out, too.

- Mario Testino

Next, One Day, I Think, Stuck

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