Peter Lindbergh (sadly no longer with us) for 40 years he was one of the most influential fashion photographers in the world.
As long as you didn’t try to retouch what he does, he is happy. Magazines had to sign a contract agreeing not to do any retouching.
He says, it happens. “The cosmetic companies have everyone brainwashed. I don’t retouch anything. ‘Oh, but she looks tired!’ they say. So what if she looks tired? Tired and beautiful.” Amen to that!
It does help if the subject is beautiful to start with.
Lindbergh is the man credited with discovering the supermodels, his iconic 1990 cover that he shot for British Vogue – of Linda, Christy, Tatjana, Naomi and Cindy – was “the birth certificate of the supermodels”.
In 1987, Peter Lindbergh received a call from Alexander Liberman, then the creative director of Condé Nast. He wanted to know why the German photographer did not want to work for American Vogue to which Lindbergh honestly replied: “I just can’t take the types of photographs of women that are in your magazine”.
As a way to get the photographer to work for American Vogue, Liberman asked to show him what he meant. This conversation resulted in arguably one of the most seminal images in fashion photography, Estelle Lefébure, Karen Alexander, Rachel Williams, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington, Vogue U.S.A. Santa Monica, California, 1988.
A few months after Liberman’s proposition, Lindbergh put together a group of young and exciting models who were new faces at the time. He chose the beach in Santa Monica as a location and shot very simple images. Captured in white shirts, bearing powerful expressions, the models transmit the photographer’s understanding of the modern independent woman.
