Elliott Erwitt

The most awful museums are in China. They have magnificent stuff on display and just the worst way of displaying it. They just don't spend money on lighting and installation.

I'm an amateur photographer, apart from being a professional one, and I think maybe my amateur pictures are the better ones.

I'm not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious.

I don't really have a favorite camera. I use a Leica and Canon a lot. It depends, especially professionally, on the requirements. But my carry-around camera is a Leica.

All of my marriages lasted seven years.

My life has been quite interesting professionally.

Everybody's got to do something... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on.

The advantage of taking pictures of the famous is that they get published.

It's almost embarrassing, but I do have one trick for taking portraits on commission. I carry one of these little bicycle horns in my pocket, and once in a while, when someone is sour-faced or stiff, I blow my horn. It sort of shatters the barriers. It's silly, but it works.

The ratio of successful shots is one in God-knows-how-many. Sometimes you'll get several in one contact sheet, and sometimes it's none for days. But as long as you go on taking pictures, you're likely to get a good one at some point.

Now very often events are set up for photographers... The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist.

When I get up in the morning I brush my teeth and go about my business, and if I am going anywhere interesting I take my camera along.