Josef Koudelka
[Photographer, b. 1938, Biskovice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, lives in Paris.]
I would go out and look and photograph whatever interested me – and then take a look at what came out of that.
I try to be a photographer. I cannot talk. I am not interested in talking. If I have anything to say, it may be found in my images.
I don’t pretend to be an intellectual or a philosopher. I just look.
Personally, I have had the good fortune of always being able to do what I wanted, never working for others. Maybe it is a silly principle, but the idea that no one can buy me is important for me. I refuse assignments, even for projects that I have decided to do anyhow. It is somewhat the same with my books. When my first book, the one on the gypsies, was published, it was hard for me to accept the idea that I could no longer choose the people to whom I would show my photos, that any one could buy them.
