I first encountered Nan Goldin's work at an exhibition in Amsterdam in 1997, long before I ever took up photography myself. I still remember the impact it had on me. Her photographs didn't just catch my attention—they went straight through to something much deeper.
What I admire most is the honesty of her work. Her photographs are raw, intimate and completely unguarded. She invited us into her life and the lives of the people around her, capturing moments of love, vulnerability, joy, pain and everyday existence without trying to make them look prettier or more comfortable than they were. Looking at her portraits feels less like viewing photographs and more like being trusted with someone's private world.
Goldin reminds me that photography isn't only about creating beautiful images. It can also be about truth, empathy and genuine human connection. Her work showed me that some of the most powerful photographs are those that reveal something deeply authentic about the people in front of the camera. That lesson has stayed with me ever since.
Favourite quotes
- I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost.
- For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It’s a way of touching somebody—it’s a caress, I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.
- l do not take the pictures I have in my head; I experience things, and they become pictures.
- Every time I go through something scary, traumatic, I survive by taking pictures.
- Where is the line between life and photographing life?
- The camera is as much a part of my everyday life as talking or eating or sex.
- My desire is to preserve the sense of people’s lives, to endow them with the strength and beauty I see in them. I want the people in my pictures to stare back.
- My work is mostly about memory. It is very important to me that everybody that I have been close to in my life I make photographs of them.
- My photography has always been about trying to stave off loss: of people, places, experience, memory. Nowadays it’s also my form of safe sex. It’s a way for me to show people the admiration and love I feel for them.
