women his signature, showing his photographs
mainly in magazines such asMademoiselleaimed
at a younger audience. This shift also signaled the
decline of Paris as the center of high couture and
the development of New York, London, and Milan
as fashion centers.
Exemplary of another new style, that of the highly
eroticized fashion image, Helmut Newton was born
in Berlin in 1920. He studied with the leading photo-
grapher Yva, left Germany before World War II,
and enlisted in the Australian Army. In 1957, he
moved to Paris, where he became a regular contri-
butor toVogue, Elle, Playboy,andMarie Claire
magazines. Helmut Newton was the first photogra-
pher to overtly inject sexuality into fashion photo-
graphs. From the beginning, sensuality had been an
undercurrent in fashion photographs. Almost every
photographer working in the area also made nude
photographs, and although occasionally a discreet
nude was published in the mainstream magazine as
a fashion illustration, most of this work was pub-
lished as a fine arts effort. With Helmut Newton the
models were absolutely certain of their sexuality and
thrust it into the foreground. In his highly sexualized
images, showing nude and partially nude women,
Helmut Newton invited the viewer to be a voyeur
and in doing so, he opened a window into a pre-
viously forbidden world.
Guy Bourdin, born as Guy Louis Babares in
Paris (1928), learned the basics of photography
during his service in the military from 1948–1949.
He was employed at different times as a salesman
for a Paris department store and a messenger for
the U.S. Embassy. He started working forVogue
magazine in 1954, and his first editorial work was
published in the magazine the following year.
Twelve years later he started to photograph the
advertising campaigns for the Jourdan Shoe Com-
pany, while continuing his work for various fash-
ion magazines. Bourdin followed the trail blazed by
Helmut Newton, but also carved his own niche in
the fashion world. His photographs often have a
sadomasochistic touch, sometimes humorous, and
always provocative. While Newton almost always
worked on location, Bourdin created his realities in
the studio.
At the end of the century the field had expanded
greatly, with numerous top fashion photographers
making substantial contributions to the field,
experimenting with color, lighting, extreme loca-
tions, computer manipulations, and other digital
techniques. A substantial number of women have
successfully entered the field, including Deborah
Turbeville, whose murky, languid style of color
work initially was considered unappealing. Ellen
Von Unwerth made the transition from model to
photographer, as did the British Sarah Moon, who
creates highly manipulated images that hark back
to the elaborate style of Cecil Beaton and Baron de
Meyer. American Sheila Metzner has photo-
graphed in some of the most extreme locales on
earth, and the Dutch-born Inez Van Lamsweerde
has moved between a career as a fashion photogra-
pher and a respected contemporary artist utilizing
digital manipulation of her images. French-born
Patrick Demarchellier, who works primarily in
color; East-German born Peter Lindbergh, known
for his black-and-white, retro-styled image of
supermodels; Chicago-based Victor Skrebneski,
known for his starkly light studio works featuring
muscular models; Hiro, whose lush work in color
signaled a shift from the predominance of black-
and-white; Herb Ritts; Bruce Weber; and numerous
others continue to make the photographs that
exemplify style and luxurious living.What Is Fashion Photography?
Fashion photography occupies a unique position in
the medium; it is the one type of photography that
captures, at one point or another, almost every-
one’s attention. Fashion photographers, particu-
larly those at the top of the profession, most easily
cross the line between fine art and commercial
work. It is the one arena where art and commerce
can exist in an easy and productive relationship.
For some photographers, the line dividing art and
commerce is indistinguishable; for others there is a
sharp line separating the two. Sheila Metzner and
Sarah Moon are two photographers who make no
distinction, while Irving Penn and Richard Avedon
keep their artistic projects apart from their com-
mercial work. Yet, there is no denying that their
artistic work informs the fashion pictures and gives
their work a distinctive edge.
As the goal of fashion photography is to project
an ideal world that is irresistible to the consumer, it
demands an extreme amount of attention to detail,
and thus is perhaps the least forgiving of all of
photographic genres. The tiniest detail that is over-
looked may become a major flaw in the finished
photograph making it useless.
As is photography itself, fashion is an illusion.
The clothes that we wear and the facades they can
create are statements about our identity, both to
ourselves and the larger world. In creating its illu-
sion photography shows only two dimensions in
place of the reality of three dimensions existing
within time. Yet this reduction of reality into a
two-dimensional image can create a compellingFASHION PHOTOGRAPHY