Her work gives her “joy and pain,” said the photographer Bettina Rheims once in an interview with the star. “It looks like fun and rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s difficult. A struggle with me and with other people.” You don’t notice that in the photographs at all. In fact, it seems as if the mostly famous models voluntarily reveal their innermost beings in front of the camera.
The fact that the photographer, born in 1952 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, manages to do just that is probably her greatest achievement. This is the only way she can reach her artistic goal. She doesn’t want to show women from their most beautiful side. Rather, Rheims aims for something else: that a woman shows herself as she really is. And so her new illustrated book, which sums up her work, also offers a lot of surprising insights.
In the self-titled photo book, the photographer Bettina Rheims collects more than 300 favorite shots from the past 35 years. The book was published by Taschen and costs 39.99 euros.
More under www.taschen.com/