A fittingly lo-fi tribute to the photographer's pared-down vision for fashion imagery, as championed by creative director Dennis Freedman
German photographer Juergen Teller (born 1964) has long collaborated with Dennis Freedman, creative director for W magazine and the luxury department store Barneys in New York. Between 1999 and 2016, the pair created a sweep of iconic series, all captured in Teller’s trademark realistic style. In his photographs for W, Teller resisted large-budget shoots and instead sought out authentic, anti-commercial narratives in subtle locations: as in his unforgettable first editorial in 1999 which featured Stephanie Seymour, Shalom Harlow and Naomi Campbell (among other supermodels) as office workers at the magazine.
Teller and Freedman’s work for Barneys catalogs between 2011 and 2016 epitomizes their risk-taking approach in unusual fashion locations such as Belgrade, Panama City and Tirana. The resulting images reveal kooky contrasts and unexpected scenarios, as models and actors explore their environments in comic poses, producing a kind of nonconformist advertising.
For Fashion Photography for America 1999–2016, Teller photographed the original W magazines and Barneys catalogs from his archives, a lo-fi method that projects the reader into his physical sifting process.
