Juergen Teller Flash Snapshot

Juergen Teller: Flash Snapshot

Juergen Teller (born 1964, Erlangen, Germany) is the photographer most responsible for introducing the snapshot aesthetic into high fashion photography. Since the early 1990s he has shot for every major fashion magazine and designed campaigns for Marc Jacobs, Celine, Vivienne Westwood, Helmut Lang, and Louis Vuitton using a direct-flash, grainy-film methodology that systematically rejects every convention of professional fashion photography.

Anti-Fashion Photography as Fashion Photography

Teller's technique is, on its surface, simple: he uses a 35mm camera (principally a Nikon) with an on-camera flash, often using fast grainy film (ISO 400-1600), and makes images that look like they were taken by someone with no photography training at a party in 1993. The subjects are frequently nude or partially undressed, the locations are hotel rooms, kitchens, parking lots, and backyards, and the poses are uncomfortable, unflattering, or both.

The paradox - and Teller is entirely aware of it - is that these images appear in the most prestigious fashion magazines in the world and sell the most expensive clothes and perfumes. His Marc Jacobs campaigns, which began in 1997 and continued for over a decade, featured celebrities and models in contexts of deliberate ordinariness: Sofia Coppola in a white t-shirt, Victoria Beckham in a shopping bag, Cindy Sherman photographing herself in a mirror. The anti-fashion register became a fashion register of its own.

Film and Flash

Teller works almost exclusively on film - typically Kodak or Fuji print film at ISO 400 or 800. He rarely brackets or makes multiple exposures; he works quickly, often making a final image on the first or second frame. The on-camera flash creates the signature flat, frontal light with a hard shadow on the wall or background behind the subject. Skin tones are slightly bleached in the highlights, and grain is visible and embraced.

This technical signature is the opposite of fashion photography's conventional lighting setups. A standard fashion shoot uses three to five lights to sculpt and flatter; Teller uses one, positioned on the camera axis, which eliminates all shadows except the background drop-shadow.

Cultural Position

Teller has published extensively in book form: Märchenstüberl (1993), Go-Sees (1999), Marc Jacobs Advertising (2008), More (2012). He has received honorary doctorates and major photography prizes, and is represented by major galleries. The snapshot aesthetic he pioneered has been so widely imitated that it is now a genre rather than a signature.