Youth and Perfection
Inside Peter Lindbergh's IG
“[It] should be the responsibility of photographers today to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection,” Peter Lindbergh once said, but ironically, we wouldn’t have the word “supermodel” without him.
The globally-adored German photographer is the only artist to ever shoot three covers for the Pirelli calendar, and has commanded the cover of Vogue so many times, we stopped counting. His black-and-white work levels his subjects to a state of pure light and shadow, peeling them away from the background with remarkable dexterity. No one photographs women in white shirts the way he did–because he did it best, and he did it first for Vogue in 1988.
“Using black-and-white photography was really important to creating the supermodel,” Lindbergh told art historian Charlotte Cotton in an interview in 2008. “Every time I tried to shoot them in colour, because their beauty was close to perfection, it ended up looking like a bad cosmetics advert. With black and white, you can really see who they are. It toned down the commercial interpretation that colour gives. What’s so striking about black and white is how it really helps a sense of reality to come through.”
Lindbergh’s Instagram is resplendent with photos of the world’s most recognizable faces–Gigi Hadid, Kate Moss, Vanessa Paradis, Ethan Hawke, and Penelope Cruz, to name just a few. And yet, for all the hundreds of stars he’s aligned on his profile, the overall effect is simple and serene. His work never feels overdone or indulgent, just sincerely appreciative of every shred of beauty life has to offer.
Here’s to you, Mr. Lindbergh. May we all find such freedom in honesty.
