20 MOST EROTIC IGs
The Best Photographs Uncensored!
Many of the world’s top photographers share their craft via their Instagram accounts. Legends like Helmut Newton, Vincent Peters, Peter Lindbergh, and Nicolas Guerin, to name a few, reach millions of fans globally by showcasing their work on social media. Provokr canvassed Instagram and shares a list of 20 photographers who explore sexiness, femininity, and masculinity. Some are famous, and some are on the rise, but all are uncensored.
Lachlan Bailey is an Australian fashion and portrait photographer living in New York City. His IG account includes celebrities, fashion, and some personal pics. Skim through his page, and you’ll come across top models, a Calvin Klein Campaign, a provocative Marion Cotillard on the cover of Paris Vogue, and a shirtless Daniel Craig. The smoldering cover shot of Brad Pitt for GQ is, well, hot.
https://www.instagram.com/lachlanbailey/
Nicolas Guerin works in fashion and advertising photography, and his IG profile states he’s a “cinema lover” and “portrait & nude photography.” His black and white images of famous actors and directors include Benedict Cumberbatch, Benicio del Toro, Lenny Kravitz, Tilda Swinton, Daniel Craig, Marilyn Manson, and more. Guerin was born in France and earned a master’s degree in cinema from La Sorbonne. Guerin said in an interview, “I have been struck by the discovery of Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and Guy Bourdin….I was 15, and I knew nothing but I really felt their creative gestures were strong, a little bit scandalous.”
https://www.instagram.com/nicolasguerinphoto/
Mert and Marcus are two fashion photographers (Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott) who collaborate. Their style is influenced by the photographer Guy Bourdin. They have pioneered the digital manipulation of their images. They have shot advertising campaigns for many leading brands, including Christian Dior, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Versace, Louis Vuitton, and Giorgio Armani. They have also directed music videos for Madonna and Nicki Minaj.
https://www.instagram.com/mertalas.marcuspiggott/
Bettina Rheims is a French artist and photographer. Her first exhibition in 1981 was of portraits depicting the strippers and circus performers of Paris’ Pigalle neighborhood. Her work explores aspects of humanity and society, and her view of female sexuality is bold, and femininity is complex.
https://www.instagram.com/bettinarheims/
Ryan McGinley is a 43-year-old American photographer living in New York City. He studied photography at Parsons School of Design, and in 2003, at age 25, he was one of the youngest artists to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of Art. The accolades continued, and a 2014 GQ article declared him “the most important photographer in America.”
https://www.instagram.com/ryanmcginleystudios/
Paolo Roversi is an Italian born fashion-photographer. He said his “photography is more subtraction than addition and I always try to take off things. We all have a sort of mask of expression. You say goodbye, you smile, you are scared. I try to take all these masks away and little by little subtract until you have something pure left. A kind of abandon, a kind of absence. It looks like an absence, but in fact, when there is this emptiness I think the interior beauty comes out.”
https://www.instagram.com/roversi/
Zanele Muholi is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi’s work focuses on race, gender, and sexuality and looks at black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex individuals. Muholi is non-binary.
https://www.instagram.com/muholizanele/
David LaChapelle, the Connecticut-born commercial and fine art photographer, had a booming career as the go-to photographer for many high-profile celebrities, including Madonna, Britney Spears, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Jackson, and Tupac Shakur. His work was creative, stunning, and witty, but he left it all behind and moved to Hawaii to run an organic farm on Maui. His IG is a colorful smorgasbord of his past and present work.
https://www.instagram.com/david_lachapelle/
Vincent Peters’ IG boasts more than 240-thousand followers, where he shares photographs of selected works. The elegant black and white photos highlight his subjects’ beauty and sex appeal, and the monochrome reveals depth and mystery. The absence of color allows Peters to focus on emotions. Whether it’s Scarlett Johannson, Cindy Crawford, David Beckham, or Charlize Theron, he exposes the intimate and seductive side with precision, creating one of a kind portraits.
https://www.instagram.com/vincentpeters1/
Peter Lindbergh died in 2019 at age 74. He was a fashion photographer and director. His iconic black and white January 1999 cover shoot for British Vogue, featuring Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington, and Cindy Crawford, is considered to have launched the era of the supermodel. “With black and white, you can really see who they are. It toned down the commercial interpretation that color gives. What’s so striking about black and white is how it really helps a sense of reality come through,” explained Lindbergh.
https://www.instagram.com/therealpeterlindbergh/
Herb Ritts was an American fashion photographer known for his photographs of celebrities, models, and other cultural figures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Ritts died in 2002 at the age of 50. His pictures appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and he worked with celebrated designers including Calvin Klein, Chanel, and Ralph Lauren. His work has been exhibited internationally, and the Herb Ritts Foundation’s IG showcases his extraordinary body of work.
https://www.instagram.com/herbritts/
Nick Knight is a British fashion photographer and founder and director of showstudio.com. Knight’s Instagram is a colorful, exotic, and provocative feed of past and present work, including videos and an occasional sharing of his political viewpoint.
https://www.instagram.com/nick_knight/
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer known for his black and white portraits and documenting New York’s S & M scene. Light, shadow, composition, and form were central to his work. Classical beauty was an essential aspect in his nudes, floral life stills, and self-portraits. Mapplethorpe said, “I don’t think that there’s that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone’s ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl.” Not surprisingly he came under fire from the religious right. Mapplethorpe died in 1989 at age 42 from HIV/AIDS.
https://www.instagram.com/robertmapplethorpefoundation/
Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer. He was described by the New York Times as a “prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications.” The Helmut Newton Foundation’s IG is a comprehensive showing of Newton’s brilliance and vision.
https://www.instagram.com/helmutnewtonfoundation/
Simon Emmett is renowned for his celebrity portraits. His work appears across various publications such as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Vogue, Esquire, GQ, and Allure. He’s a London-based photographer who has worked with Adele, Rod Stewart, Cameron Diaz, Michael Caine, Bryan Ferry, and Tony Blair. Emmett’s IG is a colorful feed of photographs, plus clips of films he has directed.
https://www.instagram.com/simonemmettstudio/
Ellen Von Unwerth is an ex-model turned photographer and director. She specializes in erotic images of the female form that conveys a feminist perspective. She has been published in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Interview. Unwerth’s Instagram feed boasts glamorous fashion shots and erotic, unrepentant sexual imagery.
https://www.instagram.com/ellenvonunwerth/
Mario Sorrenti is an Italian-American photographer and director best known for his spreads of nude models in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar pages. He exploded onto the fashion scene in the 1990s, primarily due to his sexually charged editorial work. Today, Sorrenti has captured dozens of influential figures, including Oprah, Barbra Streisand, Julianne Moore, and Joe Biden. Sorrenti’s IG has nearly 600-thousand followers, and in a word, it’s a WOW!
https://www.instagram.com/mario_sorrenti/
Sante D’Orazio began his career working for Italian Vogue in 1981 and was noticed by Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. His work revolves around sexy celebrities, including provocative images of Angelina Jolie and Sharon Stone. Pamela Anderson posed for him in 2000, which resulted in a steamy collection of black-and-white prints.
D’Orazio’s IG includes plenty of nudes, celebrities, and colorful throwbacks to his years in fashion.
https://www.instagram.com/santedorazio/
Steven Klein is a celebrated fine art and commercial photographer and is an influential visionary in the fashion industry. One of his most famous pictorials was the 1999 issue of W magazine which featured Brad Pitt portraying his character from the film Fight Club. His shoot with soccer superstar David Beckham positioned the footballer as a fashion icon. Justin Timberlake went from “boy band” singer to leading man after Klein’s shoot of Timberlake showing him tough-looking and bloodied. He has worked with icons such as Alexander McQueen, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Angelina Jolie. He still continues to challenge and provoke his subjects.
https://www.instagram.com/stevenkleinstudio/
Haris Nukem is a London based fashion and portrait photographer who came to the United Kingdom as an asylum seeker. He was born in 1989 in Bosnia, then still part of Yugoslavia, he left as a political refugee. His work has been described as a “passionate study of the human spirit in the 21st century. He loves fairy tales, mythology, rebels, freckles, tattoos, body hair and granular textures.”
https://www.instagram.com/harisnukem/
