Atlantica - 01.11.2001, Page 18

M o d e l P h o t o g ra p h y
statement about life and death…
Sometimes it’s just fun to do something
for its own sake, isn’t it? It’s just as simple
as this!
Yes, I see that you like to put humour
into your pictures, or fantasy, like in the
grotesque science fiction series published
in Vogue Italia of March 2001, ‘In a Future
Mood’.
Yes, t e one with the crashed UFO!
Where do models come from and are
they all equally easy to work with and to
direct?
Well, it always occurs in waves. Twenty
years ago, the models were all
Americans. Twenty-five years ago, they
were all Swedish, just before this
American fascination. Now a lot of mod-
els come from Eastern countries. I’ve fin-
ished, just last week, a shoot in New York
for Italian Vogue. The models were all
Polish and Russian. The set was made to
look like a Polish wedding. It was very
funny – in a kind of community centre in
NYC. All the modeling agencies are look-
ing in the East now… instead of going to
Reykjavík!
Do you work well within a team? Are you
one for giving much direction?
I always work with the same people.
For many years, I’ve worked only with
two hairdressers – one for 18 years and
the other one for 12 years. I’ve used the
same make-up artists for about 15
years… and there are some others as
well. It has not been something exclusive,
but very often I work with the same peo-
16 A T L A N T I C A
Then the model becomes kind of fright-
ened. Outside, feeling free to move and
run, you lose the “angst”. In this way, the
photographer might just scrape off one
more mask.
Do you come up with stories before shoot-
ing, or do you improvise with props that
you bring to the set?
Mostly it’s organised beforehand. You
have to choose a place and the props you
need, so the story is more or less clear. But
when you start working, lots of things can
happen and suddenly the project might
totally change. Actually, it usually changes
quite a great deal during the process. The
essence and the feeling of the photograph
combines when you shoot it, and you can
not plan this out. So it’s very important to
leave a lot of freedom, to see what hap-
pens while you shoot… accidents, one
would call them... and not to plan the pic-
tures too perfectly. It’s best to stay open
beyond your expectations.
You said that you were in love with all
your models. Did you marry one?
No, I’ve never dated a model, never. But I
do have a girlfriend who is a cook.
You have often photographed models, as
we said before, in a kind of backstage envi-
ronment, or at a midpoint between stage
and backstage. Doing so, are you trying to
photograph the distinction between art
and reality?
I think there’s a lot of playing involved
here, it’s not that serious. It is mostly a
game. It’s a lot of fun to do things like that.
It’s not always political, it’s not always a
airmail
ple. While you’re working on one project,
you talk about the next one. There is
always a process of exchange or collabora-
tion with the people you work with.
Sometimes though, to refresh my work, I
just go it alone, without my team. I will
take one or two models, not too famous
ones, to do pictures in the street for
instance, just to feel free to work different-
ly, in a lighter way.
Do you have any upcoming projects, such
as new books or exhibitions?
I’m actually doing one book with the
working title, and I hate this title, Famous
Women. In the last book, I didn’t want to
use this title because it was more about
photography than about names. But in this
one we have so many well-known actress-
es and singers, probably 100 women in all.
You know, two or three weeks ago I shot
the new Pirelli calendar, the one for next
year, and the approach we used was to do
the new Hollywood. While I could have
photographed Nicole Kidman, Sharon
Stone or such actresses, I chose to use new
ones. So we’ve shot Julia Styles and others
who are not known in Europe. It was an
interesting perspective to make the casting
based on their work. We just took the most
interesting new actresses, regardless of
how they looked. They didn’t have to be
particularly beautiful, just interesting. So
we chose 12, for instance, Erica Kristensen
who was in Traffic, and others like her. We
got beautiful results. And it was satisfying
to choose models based on their talent
rather than their bra size!
Photo spreads from the book Peter Lindbergh: Photographs
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