Motivation Monday - Peter Lindbergh

"My feeling is that for years now it has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined. Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century." Peter Lindbergh on the overuse of retouching in fashion photography.

Peter Lindbergh (born Peter Brodbeck in 1944) has been called "the worlds greatest fashion photographer" (Ian Phillips, 1997). He has been taking fashion photographs since 1978 and has created some absolutely amazing photographs since. He has shot several television commercials and ad campaigns for some of the biggest companies and with some of the biggest stars (e.g. Tina Turner for Hanes). He has even directed a short documentary, which received great reviews and awards. He has shot some of the most famous fashion models such as Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford (photographed together in 1990, below). One would think, as a fashion model, being photographed by Peter Lindbergh would be not only an honour, but also something you would definitely include in your portfolio.

His photographs have been published in almost every fashion magazine in existence including Stern, Harper's Bazaar (Fashion Olympics article, below, featuring Lucy Liu) and Vogue.

His first book, Ten Women, was published in 1996 and has sold over 100,000 copies. It is a collection of black and white photographs of ten top models of the moment. He has been given award after award and many photographic honours throughout his career.

One of the things that I find most inspirational about him are his views on Photoshop and digital retouching (see quote at beginning of post). From what I understand of his views, mine are similar in that, retouching should not be a photographic tool as it is. It should take less of a role and the photographer should be more aware of their subject and have the abilities to create a flattering, and yet still honest, image without relying on digital assistance. Lindbergh definitely has the skills needed to create not only flattering images of his subject, but incredibly interesting and unique ones.

(images found through Google)