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Peter Müller
Peter Müller is a photographer and co-owner of
NOIRStudio in Frankfurt, Germany, in partnership
with Jean Noir. He is known for his emotive black &
white portraits that are shot in-camera and require
little retouching. He holds workshops around the
world that explain how he conveys emotion and tells
stories in his images. You can discover more of his
work at http://www.500px.com/petermuller.ALL PICTURES © PETER MÜLLER
T
he powerful black &
white portraits shot by
Peter Müller combine
a sense of emotion
with conveying the essence of his
subjects. What is almost unique
about Peter’s work is that he likes
to get it right in-camera, fi rst time,
without any need to retouch his
images later on. Peter has built a
reputation as one of Europe’s fi nest
portrait photographers and cites
his main infl uences as the late Peter
Lindbergh and fellow Rotolight
‘Master of Light’ Greg Gorman.
To help to creatively light his
portraits Peter regularly deploys the
range of Rotolight LED lights, all of
which also off er High Speed Sync
(HSS) fl ash capabilities. For his
studio work he tends to rely on
either the Anova PRO 2 or thePortrait photographer Peter Müller reveals
the secrets behind how he shoots superb
mono portraits using Rotolight’s system
Shoot stunning
B&W p ort rait s
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
AEOS units. In order to supplement
natural light for his location shoots
Peter will tend to turn to the NEO 2
unit, which has the benefi t of being
lightweight, easy to carry and yet
fl exible in both light and HSS fl ash
capabilities. Yet Peter tends to only
deploy fl ash for his commercial
work, relying on combinations of
ambient light and Rotolights for his
other work.
Peter’s go-to camera system is
Nikon and his black & white work is
primarily shot on the Nikon D5
DSLR. His occasional colour
fashion work is usually shot on a
Nikon D810 camera. He estimates
that ‘about 89%’ of his pictures are
shot with a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8
zoom lens, which he uses ‘only with
open apertures, so f/2.8 or f/3.2’,
and he tends to shoot at ISO values
from 640 up to around 3200.Getting it right in-camera
Peter explains: ‘I try to shoot as
perfectly as possible in-camera. I
try to create and give myself, and
the model, a space in which the light
is perfect. I try to create a light
setting in which if she gets two steps
in front of me, two steps back, if she
turns right or left... it’s fi ne. That
allows me to have the confi dence
that if she stays in my space I don’t
have to work on my pictures later on
because the light in all this part of
the square is good enough for
my fi nal picture.’4 Body length portrait
This longer-length body portrait
demonstrates Peter’s subtle mix of
ambient and artifi cial light. He reveals,
‘If you see the full set, my main light
was from the window and between
the windows there are walls. I used
one light to give a rim light from the
back, so it’s not too dark, and the
other one was positioned where
shadows might hit her because she
was moving back and forth – that
acted like a fi ll light to extend the
window light.’ Shooting settings were
Nikon D5 and focal length 150mm,
1/1600sec, f/2.8; ISO 1000.The studio set-up
featuring two Rotolight
Anova PRO 2 units for
rim and fill lighting