Peter Lindbergh is one of the best fashion photographers in the world, but he captures so much more than fashion. The photos of Peter Lindbergh bring fashion photography into the realm of art: here homogeneous models become real personas.
For me, every photograph is a portrait; the clothes are just a vehicle for what I want to say. You’re photographing a relationship with the person you’re shooting; there’s an exchange, and that’s what that picture is.
He broke one of the biggest rules of fashion photography – the model transformed from a classical woman (immaculately dressed and concerned about her social status) to a new type of woman who is courageous and raw; liberated from male guardianship and social rules.
If photographers are responsible for creating or reflecting an image of women in society, then, I must say, there is only one way for the future, and this is to define women as strong and independent. This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.
“Smoking Women” is one of his collections that depicts such a woman. In these photographs, you can see famous models such as Amber Valletta, Linda Evangelista, Helena Christensen, and Tatjana Patitz not looking quite like models; they look like true women with their own headaches and cigarettes dangling from their hands.
When we think about smoking women in fashion and photography, we imagine sexy femme fatales who get everything and everyone that they desires. But in Lindberg’s series we can see true people – models who smoke because it’s what they do daily (stress management, weight loss, etc.). He exposes models as they are: human beings with their own emotions and moods.
More photographs of “Smoking Women” here.
they are magnetizing 