It seems like I’ve brought up Helmut a number of times recently for one reason or another, and after seeing his book, Helmut Netwon: Pages from Glossies I can’t but help to hash him up again.

There’s a lot of work of Newton’s that is ubiquitous and that we all know: the nudes, the Yves Saint Laurent campaigns, the more classic Vogue stuff, but this book brings up en masse Helmut’s not often shown editorial work he did through his career.  And my suggestion is for anyone interested in shooting fashion to look through this book at least once.  It will show you both how incredibly inventive and creative Newton was, even for simple, single page Vogue shots, and also how very many editorials and aesthetics alive and well today were born from the style he brought to the mainstream.  It makes apparent that Steven Klein and LaChapelle and many others are Newton’s children.  Not to suggest this is a bad thing at all, on the contrary.  We are all made from something and come from someplace(s).  But I think it’s important to attempt to understand what those somethings are and where the someplaces are. This book is a excellent hand in that attempt.

It’s eye opening, humbling, and inspiring.

photo: cover of the book Helmut Newton: Pages from the Glossies.

photo: Cindy Crawford in Vogue (don’t have the issue date), ©Helmut Newton.