Herb Ritts Quotes

• Even though I didn’t get a business degree, I enjoyed learning about economics.

  Herb Ritts

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Degree, Even, Thought

• The education, the cultural awareness, is different in Europe, especially in France, from that in the United States. So I think the public will be much more appreciative of many images.

  Herb Ritts

• That’s why I felt so at home when I went to Africa. It didn’t matter that I was halfway around the world in a foreign country, because all those elements are universal. And I think that’s one thing about my work: It’s universal.

  Herb Ritts

• I always enjoyed art history because, growing up in California, my exposure was limited, and it was a new experience. To learn the history of art opened up certain things to me, made me see. It intrigued me.

  Herb Ritts

• Within two hours of where I live, you have mountains and desert as location. I like the natural elements that abstract into light, texture, shape and shadow.

  Herb Ritts

• When you start out, you’re not really aware. I didn’t have a sense of photographic history.

  Herb Ritts

• What I particularly liked was that, coming from California and not being involved in the New York scene, I developed my personal way, in my own way, at my own pace.

  Herb Ritts

• Well, I liked it – that was the main thing. I liked it, but I didn’t think of it in terms of a career. I didn’t really know; I didn’t really think about it. One thing just led to another until finally I quit my job as a salesman and found myself working as a photographer.

  Herb Ritts

• Regardless of whether you speak the language or are familiar with a culture, the picture should hold up.

  Herb Ritts

• Once you develop your own style, you know when you’re able to give your best. Feeling at home is part of it, and I don’t think that’s an L.A. thing. It’s a matter of the environment and of what affects you.

  Herb Ritts

• Many people who excel are self-taught.

  Herb Ritts

• I’m pretty selective. I generally edit the contact sheets and then do work prints. Because I have my own lab and printers, I can afford the luxury of going through the contact sheets for black-and-white, making up work prints, seeing them big, and honing them down.

  Herb Ritts

• I’d go down to the end of my street, to a garage that had a certain feeling about it, or a particular light; I’d take a picture of a friend who needed a head shot. That’s how I learned, instead of having school assignments and learning camera techniques.

  Herb Ritts

• I was an economics major, which I enjoyed because I had a good business sense.

  Herb Ritts

• I think knowing people by first names, not by what they do sexually, is really what it’s about. Not being afraid. Fear is the enemy. I’ve always been comfortable with being gay.

  Herb Ritts

• I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they’re missing the key element.

  Herb Ritts

• I like form and shape and strength in pictures.

  Herb Ritts

• I did grow up next door to Steve McQueen, who was a very famous movie star at the time, but as a kid it didn’t impress me. We always had great fun with him. He would take us out on Sundays on his motorcycles, riding around in the desert; he was like a second father.

  Herb Ritts

• Generally, the French highly promote culture and the arts, and photography is in their blood.

  Herb Ritts

• For me, the most important thing I learned was just honing my eye. I think I had a good eye.

  Herb Ritts

Herb Ritts (21)

Birth:	13th August, 1952
Death:	26th December, 2002
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Photographer

About

Herbert "Herb" Ritts Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an American fashion photographer who concentrated on black-and-white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture. He studied at Bard College in New York, where he majored in economics and art history. He also worked for Esquire, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, GQ,  Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, Time, Vogue, Allure, Vanity Fair, Details, and Elle. From 1996 to 1997 his work was displayed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, attracting more than 250,000 people to the exhibit, and in 2003 a solo exhibition was held at the Daimaru Museum, in Kyoto, Japan.

Related Authors

• Heath Bouffard
• Wayne Gerard Trotman
• Zdzisław Beksiński
• Val Wilmer
• Marie Symeou
• Tabitha Soren
• Yousuf Karsh
• James Baker Hall
• Imogen Cunningham
• Michael Kennedy

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 21st November

Births

• 1952 - Lorna Luft
• 1870 - Alexander Berkman
• 1963 - Nicollette Sheridan
• 1929 - Marilyn French
• 1989 - Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte

Deaths

• 1926 - Joseph McKenna
• 1959 - Max Baer
• 1945 - Robert Benchley
• 1969 - Norman Lindsay
• 1958 - Mel Ott