I have always found the suburbs very beautiful – the light, the change of seasons and so on. I am not so interested in the political dimensions of these things.
BILL HENSONI have always found the suburbs very beautiful – the light, the change of seasons and so on. I am not so interested in the political dimensions of these things.
BILL HENSONYou have the literalness of a glass on a table – and at the same time of that evidential authority that you can’t get around, there is the possibility of universalizing the subject – of getting the whole world into the picture.
BILL HENSONIt was the dreamscape of the suburbs that interested me.
BILL HENSONI could be standing in the supermarket, and there is a person standing down the aisle, who is reading the back of a cornflakes box but everything about them is going “It’s me! I’m the one you want! I am the necessary subject. This is it!”
BILL HENSONOn practical level I can’t pick up the camera until I think I know what I want. I don’t wander around. It’s almost impossible for me to pick up a camera… it’s really hard.
BILL HENSONMost of life is grey, with a little tiny bit of black and white.
BILL HENSONAll of those a requickly made decisions. The fact that you can see the images right away in a funny way makes the whole relationship more casual. I don’t want a casual relationship with my subject.
BILL HENSONWhat happens with experiences that really move us deeply, that really effect us? They make the world new again. What it does is it heightens our sense of mortality.
BILL HENSONWhen you shoot on film, you don’t know whether you’ve got it or not until you get the film processed, and so it changes the relationship we have with the subject whether it’s a landscape or a person in a so-called controlled environment in a chair in a studio in front of you.
BILL HENSONThere’s something about the processional nature of the architecture, of the rooms connecting rooms. It’s just breathtaking.
BILL HENSONAs a boy I was obsessed with Egypt and Egyptology. I’m convinced it’s not that uncommon. A lot of 10 or 12 year old boys become obsessed with Egypt. It’s a bit like young girls and horses.
BILL HENSONAdolescence is interesting. I mean, all of life is interesting and all of life is transitionary. But I think there is an exponential growth physically, intellectually, emotionally and there is so much potential.
BILL HENSONIn every form of art, you really want the experience of the images to transcend the medium, for the medium to disappear into the greater experience of viewing the work. So that you forget you are looking at a painting, or a photograph.
BILL HENSONMost of life is grey, with a little tiny bit of black and white. We’re always subject to what I call the compression industry, which is an attempt to compress a million shades of grey with a little bit of black and white to just a hundred, or to ten, or to one!
BILL HENSONI was always amazed at how beautiful the light was. At different times of the day the landscape becomes a different place. Dawn and dusk, it’s a different place.
BILL HENSONYou spend your whole life trapped inside your body. Everything you know about the world comes to you through your body.
BILL HENSON