The Best High Fashion Photographers
High fashion photographers are often lauded as the ones who make or break fashion: They start careers of famous models, define the hot looks of the moment and create images that end up in the archives of style. Many of them are recognized as artists in their own right, creating iconic, unforgettable images. Does this Spark an idea?
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon started his career in the 1940s doing fashion photography for magazines like Harper's Bazaar, Look and Vogue. He also worked in advertising during the early part of his career. His true passion became the portrait, and his fashion industry connections helped him build relationships with celebrities. Some of his most notable portraits feature up-close shots of the world's most famous people with stark white backgrounds. His images of Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and hundreds of famous political figures, celebrities and everyday people are instantly recognizable.
Guy Bourdin
One of the most controversial photographers of the late 20th century, Guy Bourdin is famous for his risque fashion and advertising images. Bourdin worked for both Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and created advertising campaigns for Chanel, Issey Miyake, Emanuel Ungaro and Gianni Versace, among other high fashion houses. He began his photography career in the late 1940s, while in the French Air Force. He moved to Paris in 1950 and met Man Ray, who became his biggest mentor. His first fashion shots were taken in the mid 1950s and he continued to work in fashion until the late 1980s. His work is highly stylized, often sexual in nature and sometimes separates parts of the body from others; an image can feature a single leg or a pair of lips in the frame.
David LaChapelle
Strange, surreal sets and kooky images are at the heart of the fashion images created by David LaChapelle. He works in fashion as well as with film and video, and has been behind many of the most popular music videos of the 1990s, including ones by Mariah Carey, Elton John, Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilerra. He's known for making fashion portraits of many of these same starts, and the portraits often have a twisted, surrealistic bent. He has also been behind advertising campaigns for a number of brands, including Diesel, Tommy Hilfiger and H&M.
Steven Meisel
A photographer that models yen to work with, Steven Meisel makes images for both American Vogue and the more risque and adventurous Italian Vogue. A New York Native, he studied at the Parsons School of Designs and has a deep interest in the world of fashion. He has been involved in creating advertising campaigns for more than 20 years, with houses the likes of Prada, Versace and Dolce and Gabbana. His visually stunning images reign the use of color and pair it with comments on counterculture and pop culture, all underneath a layer of his signature wry style.
Helmut Newton
German-Australian photographer Helmut Newton was a master of nude studies of women. Born in Berlin, the photographer bought his first camera at age 12. Life became hard for his family in Germany once the Nazi occupation began, and he left the country in 1938 for Singapore, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and portrait photographer. He was interned by the British government and sent to Australia until after the war. His career as a fashion photographer took flight in the post-war years, and he worked for Vogue, Australian Vogue and British Vogue throughout the 1950s. He continued to work through the 1980s, producing a series of large-scale nude photographs and working on some Playboy magazine stories. His photographs, stylized and often with sexual undertones, are almost always of women.
Irving Penn
A painter and photographer, Irving Penn took his first job in the fashion industry as a cover designer for Vogue magazine. Once he started photographing his own ideas for the covers, his career in fashion photography began. Elegance, luxury and minimalist staging are the landmarks of his style. He preferred to use natural light in his images, and became known as a celebrity portrait maker later in his career. His stark style of photographing celebrities focused the viewer's eye on the person's face rather than the background, and he made famous images of Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and other artists and actors using this technique, which was innovative in his day.
Herb Ritts
Known for creating some of the most iconic images of the "supermodels" of the 1990s, Herb Ritts worked in black and white and found inspiration from ancient Greek statues. He worked for Vogue, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair and created advertising campaigns for Chanel, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Gap and Valentino, among many others. He also directed some famous music videos, including the one for Madonna's "Cherish" and Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game." His imagery often challenged standard notions of race and sexuality. He was a vocal activist for many causes during his lifetime, including HIV/AIDS and the Special Olympics.
Bruce Weber
Known for his work with the nude male body, Bruce Weber is probably most famous for the advertising campaigns he created, including those for Abercrombie and Fitch, Calvin Klein and Versace. He shot a number of controversial Calvin Klein ads in the early 1990s. These stark black and white shots featured couples, clothed and unclothed, in sensual, often erotic poses. Many of his celebrity portraits have been featured in Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine, and he's also created a number of music videos and album covers for artists the like of Chris Isaak and Harry Connick, Jr.
Tags: advertising campaigns, Calvin Klein, music videos, 1950s continued, 1950s continued work, advertising campaigns Chanel