The Journal: Interview with Terry Richardson

In the forthcoming issue of The Journal, the publication gets down and dirty with photographer Terry Richardson. Having been thrusted into the fashion news over last few weeks due to various model allegations, Terry Richardson’s interview talks about his photographic experiences as well as aspects of his personal life beyond work. Excerpts of the article (each paragraph represents a different topic) can be seen below.

I love shooting guys. Some of my favorite pictures over the years have been the things I’ve done with guys. In a commercial context too, there’s no hair or makeup with guys, which is great. I love shooting nudes of guys, but it’s harder to get guys to do full nudes, I don’t know why, but they don’t want to show their junk. I love doing guys. If there are any guys out there that want to get naked you can email: model@terryrichardson.com.

Sometimes while I’m working out I’ve felt like I’m being cruised a bit. At the gym, I don’t fuck around, I don’t take showers there, I grab my shit and get out. But some dude grabbed my friend’s dick in the showers. My friend was like, “What the fuck are you doing?” I live close to the gym, so I come home to shower.

You know, I never have. I was talking to a girl there a lot but she had a boyfriend. I’ve never gotten any gym action. Actually, that’s not true, years ago I did. I would talk to this girl all the time and then asked for her number. Later, we hung out and ended up going to her place, and were fooling around and I realized her body was a mess, she didn’t work out. I asked her “What’s up, you work at the gym, don’t you work out” and she was like, “I work at the gym but I don’t exercise.” There is nothing wrong with not exercising but I was a little disappointed, it’s like false advertising.

Sometimes you meet people and it’s not that you don’t get along, but you’re just not vibing. At times, there’s just not much energy and it can be anticlimactic. When that happens I just try to do something simple, like lean them against a wall.

I don’t think I started having sex until I quit drinking, because when I was drinking and taking drugs, I preferred getting loaded to having sex. I was a late bloomer, because once I got sober I was like, “Wow, sex is awesome, this is crazy,” and then it became like a drug. You become addicted, like a sex addict or whatever, and I did all of these photographs because it was new for me. I’ve grown out of that phase, which was coming out of working through live and just tripping out.

Yeah, like David Duchovny, just kidding … No, I don’t identify myself that way. Sex is intense. Sex, food, drugs, shopping, alcohol, the gym, plastic surgery, collecting art, there are all of these things that people get a rush from or become obsessed with. Sex then was never an addiction but a kind of obsession, and it was fun. It was all during the day and there were people everywhere and the energy was incredible. To me, it was like a happening.

Source: The Cut