When I came to American Vogue, the problem was they they thought I had a weird way of shooting and the editor at the time had a different aesthetic. LINDBERGH: American Vogue did turn me down. KUPPER: So How did you come in contact with Vogue? How did that first shoot come about? I know they turned it down at first. When that is your goal, a lot of beautiful things happen. LINDBERGH: That contact is a beautiful thing. Can you describe where that comes from? Is that something that you project? KUPPER: There’s a closeness in your photographs, an intimacy between you and your subjects. Bradley Cooper is one of the most interesting men and he is my friend, but they are not all like that. And they all talk about the celebrities, no? I like celebrities, but only if they have something to say. A lot of people think my work is all about the celebrities. Then in 2000, I wanted to do more photography like that. And then all these super models popped up in my face and I had to follow that trajectory. I did a story with Helena Christensen and the martian for Vogue. LINDBERGH: How that came up, it started in 1990. But you also blend a lot of American influences too, like Sci-Fi and aliens. LINDBERGH: I come from a place that is totally industrial and heavy industry. There’s a very industrial inspiring look that goes goes against the grain of typical, glossy fashion. KUPPER: There’s a cinematic quality to your work.
A lot of kids, they come for the show and they think, ‘Oh fashion, fashion!’ I was interested in doing something. You weren’t using stylists or anything like that. KUPPER: Some of your earliest photographs especially with Vogue, they were really stripped down.
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You know what I would say if I came to the Oscars and I had done a wonderful movie for 12 months or so, and as I walked up the red carpet, someone asked, ‘Wow, what is your jacket?’ I would say, ‘Fuck off.’ That’s what I would say. LINDBERGH: You have twelve to fifteen of the favorite actors in the world. KUPPER: No it’s okay, I think people should talk back about the industry. You see the Oscars today and they walk down the carpet and sometimes they can’t, they can’t even walk in those heels - I should shut my mouth. LINDBERGH: No, at that time I had no real idea of what was going on in the fashion world. KUPPER: Were you bored of the fashion and the glamour that was going on? From people like Marie Claire, who said come to Paris, we’ll give you a contract just for that one story. But looking back today for the first 5 years, whatever I did wasn’t really something to talk about. KUPPER: What were some of the most important lessons that you learned when you were first taking pictures and lessons that you still carry with you, lessons that you left behind? And that was something, that was very fun. Something that happened twice a year like what LIFE magazine does for fashion twice a year.
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Lindbergh: It wasn’t so much that I knew them, I knew of their work.The first professional job I did was for Stern Magazine, which Helmut and Guy Bourdin was a part of. What were your reflections of them and what were their reflections of you?
KUPPER: You were working alongside a lot of really big photographers, like Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. LINDBERGH: No, it was really late actually. KUPPER: And this was shortly after the war? I had to stop art to see what I wanted to do.I could have been a florist or a baker or something but I wasn’t. LINDBERGH: I felt that that, wow, that was the right thing. And I felt very fast that it was a wonderful thing. I didn’t feel like it was the right thing. I was an artist and then I stopped doing art, specifically paintings.
I said that I was very interested in photography. They said, be truthful with us, because we know why people pick up cameras: to get close to the girls. PETER LINDBERGH: I had an interview two or three weeks ago, with somebody in Germany. OLIVER KUPPER: When and why did you first pick up a camera? We caught up with Lindbergh at a recent signing in Beverly Hills to discuss his work and influences. Coinciding with his major retrospective at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Taschen has recently released a major career monograph with over four hundred photographs from his oeuvre. His images of Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, Karen Alexander, among others, turned them into supermodels.
You could say that Lindbergh’s work ushered in a new aesthetic paradigm for the pages of glossy magazines. There is another name, however, that is just as iconic: Peter Lindbergh. When you think of famous fashion photographers, a few names come to mind: Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Mario Testino and perhaps Herb Ritts.