The extraordinaire Peter Lindbergh
The extraordinaire Peter Lindbergh has drawn everyone’s attention with his memorable and iconic cinematic images. Peter Lindbergh is acknowledged as one of the most influential contemporary photographers.
His story begins as a window dresser for a department store in Duisburg, Germany, where he also spent his childhood. Later then, he enrolled the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin where he spent his years being inspired by his idol, Van Gogh.
Peter Lindbergh is definitely considered a pioneer in photography. He revolutionized the fashion photography by introducing a form of new realism and by redefining the standard of beauty with timeless images. He brought in his images a human approach where he always idealized the most pure and natural traits of women.
Peter Lindbergh changed drastically the standards of the fashion photography in times of excessive retouching considering that there is something else that makes a person interesting: their perfect imperfections.
Peter Lindbergh explains in his book: “This should be the responsibility of photographers today to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection”.
One of his most legendary moments begins in January 1999 with the cover of Vogue UK. When he photographed for the first time together, the young models then, the supermodels nowadays: Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Tatjiana Patitz.
“I remember how hot it was that day in New York; we were on the streets in the Meatpacking District. All of us girls were friendly, though some were closer than others, but it was before cellphones, so when we were together we really talked, not distracted by our messages. Managing five women jostling for position cannot have been easy, but Peter is a dream to work with. He knew how to control us” — Cindy Crawford for Vogue, talking about the shooting
After the legendary cover, George Michael, the initiator of the Supermodels movement, was inspired by Lindbergh’s photographs for Vogue and created his iconic video Freedom, starring the supermodels.
Pirelli 1996
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Another iconic moment for Lindbergh was his record third time commission to photograph the 2017 edition of the Pirelli Calendar, after he previously created the 1996 and 2002 editions. Peter Lindbergh is the first photographer that created the celebrated calendar more than twice in the 50 years of history.
Pirelli 2002
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Pirelli 2017
The images of the leading role actresses of the Pirelli calendar have all the hallmarks of Lindbergh’s work — the purity of their own natural beauty.
Lindbergh chose to give the work the title “Emotional” to emphasis how the idea behind his photos was “to create a calendar not around perfect bodies, but on sensitivity and emotion, stripping down to the very soul of the sitters, who thus become more nude than naked” — Peter Lindbergh for Vogue.
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Peter Lindbergh’s work can be seen in prestigious places, where has his permanent collections, such as: Victoria & Albert Museum, Centre Pompidou, Musseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lindbergh has also a history of directing films and documentaries. Peter directed a number of films and documentaries awarded at different film festivals. In 1991 and 1999 he directed the two documentaries ‘Models, the film’, respectively ‘Inner voices’ who won the Best Documentary prize at the Toronto Film Festival in 2000.
Also we cannot forget to mention the 2001 masterpiece ‘Pina Bausch, der Fensterputzer’ and ‘Everywhere At Once’ in 2007.
Some other iconic work of Peter Lindbergh:
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Sources: vogue.com, peterlindbergh.com, pirellicalendar.com
Originally published at sunchasers.
