Anton Corbijn

In a way, I don't really want to know, because I'm afraid that if you really know, you might just jinx it.

Sometimes people say, I copy your style, and then all they do is make it look like my pictures, but it never is.

And then the style is an interesting thing because I was not looking for a style.

I was just not able to take pictures any other way.

And that becomes your style, your inability to do it any other way.

I was 17, which these days is not very young.

But I borrowed my father's camera for a local gig that was on Town Square.

He had a black and white film in there and I took, I think, nine pictures, six of which I had then sent to a magazine in Holland because I didn't know what to do.

And I thought, let's just send them.

And they used three of them.

And I was like, wow, it was great.

And I thought everybody would have seen that.

I felt very proud for a bit.

But then it took another two years before...

anything else was published.

It gave me courage to start taking pictures because I really wanted to be part of the music world.

And I thought, oh, I can see that could be a way in.

Not at that time, I think.

I just wanted to, you know, it's just a kind of hobby maybe, or I wanted to be acknowledged as a living person.

I think I had a very low self-esteem.