The 2017 Pirelli calendar is breaking new ground as photographer Peter Lindbergh shifts from nearly nude women to showcasing beauty of all ages - including Julianne Moore.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Peter Lindbergh
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Known for its bare-all portraits of women, the Pirelli Calendar has grabbed media attention every year since its debut 53 years ago. For the 2017 edition, the calendar makers from the tire-making giant decided to shake things up a bit by photographing women of all ages - with their clothes on.
Leaving a bit more to the imagination, German-born photographer Peter Lindbergh focused his lens on 14 talented women, from actresses Helen Mirren and Charlotte Rampling to Lupita Nyong'o and Zhang Ziyi. It marks an unprecedented diversity for the calendar known for its eroticism and one that Lindbergh defended by saying the current work is in objection to what he calls the "terror of perfection and youth."
"This is another form of nudity, one that is much more important than just naked body parts," he told a press conference at the calendar's launch on Tuesday. Nudity, he said, "strips the actresses' soul," adding that this "will be a calendar about sensitivity, emotions, and by no means about perfect bodies."
In a promotional video on Pirelli's YouTube channel, Lindbergh describes his motivation behind his approach.
Beauty in the eye of the beholder
Shot in five locations over the course of four weeks, the 2017 Pirelli Calendar includes numerous close-ups while doing without overpowering makeup. The settings play a strong role in the images, with New York's Times Square predominant in several, along with iconic locations in Los Angeles, Berlin, London and the French beach of Le Touquet.
It's the third time that Lindbergh has shot the calendar. The project follows on a decades-long career in fashion and advertising photography that has been focused on imaging strong women. Perhaps best known for his work in the 1990s with supermodels like Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Helena Christensen, Lindbergh has kept his focus away from the male gaze: His models showcase an independence and intelligence that draws viewers in.
His work on the 2017 calendar follows on a shift in the Pirelli universe away from the images of barely-clad women rolling in sand that often hung in auto mechanics' shops that began last year with striking images by Annie Leibovitz.
Click through the gallery below for a closer look at Peter Lindbergh's approach to photography, as shown in a recent exhibition in Rotterdam.
From Daft Punk to Chanel: Peter Lindbergh's photography
One of the most influential fashion photographers of our time, Peter Lindbergh has died at the age of 74. Here are highlights of the German's works from a past traveling exhibition.
Capturing Lindbergh's vision
Peter Lindbergh took this photo of Daft Punk in France in 2013. The Kunsthal Rotterdam held a retrospective of the German photographer's work in 2016. The exhibition was envisioned as a narrative providing insight into his vision, using previously unseen material, including personal notes, storyboards, props, Polaroids, contact sheets, and films.
Image: Peter Lindbergh
A fashion icon
Even if you have not heard of Peter Lindbergh, you know his work well. He is credited with creating a new age in fashion photography after shooting five young models for British "Vogue," essentially launching the era of the supermodel with the pictures capturing Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington in downtown New York.
Image: Peter Lindbergh
Film inspires fashion
In his signature black-and-white shots, Lindbergh introduced a new realism into photography when he began to be noticed in the late 1970s and early 80s. He frequently turned to film for inspiring backdrops and played on the prototype of the strong, self-willed woman which helped redefine the beauty norms written by the fashion industry.
Image: Peter Lindbergh
A responsibility 'to free women'
Lindbergh took his position in society very seriously, saying in 2014 that his role as a fashion photographer is to "reflect a certain social or human reality." In a later interview, he clarified by saying, "This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection." Pictured is Milla Jovovich during a 2012 Chanel shoot.
Image: Peter Lindbergh
Photography that captures humanity, warts and all
Not a fan of Photoshop, Lindbergh is known for capturing the human face in all its imperfections. "How surrealistic is today's commercial agenda to retouch all signs of life and of experience, to retouch the very personal truth of the face itself?" he told Isabel Flower in an interview published in "Art Forum." Shown here: actress Julianne Moore in 2008.
Image: Peter Lindbergh
'A dangerous form of snobbery'
Lindbergh was perhaps best known for the images he created for fashion spreads in "Vogue" and advertising campaigns shot for luxury design houses including Chanel. Still, he didn't differentiate between his commercial and non-commercial images, calling the distinction between "commissioned" and "fine art" photography a "dangerous form of snobbery."
Image: Taschen Verlag/Peter Lindbergh
The book: 'A Different Vision on Fashion Photography'
To accompany the exhibition, which traveled to museums in Munich and Torino after its run in Rotterdam, the German publisher Taschen compiled over 400 of Lindbergh's photographs in a book of the same name. The text by curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot includes greater insight into the photographer's biography and working process.
The responsibility of the fashion photographer
"A fashion photographer should contribute to defining the image of the contemporary woman or man in their time, to reflect a certain social or human reality," Peter Lindbergh once said in "Art Forum." The influential German photographer has died at the age of 74 on September 3, 2019.
