Juergen Teller

Photographs by fashionartedit

Juergen Teller. By Emma Revees. the journal. Entry #21. 

"No I don't actually. I go specifically to do something. I think about it. Put everything together, organize it, and execute it. And I might have to re-shoot it if I think it didn't work out. So I work as long as I have to, to get it." (Juergen Teller)

"I guess everything is a collaboration, but I am the director, I am the boss!" (Juergen Teller)

"I was doing these record covers and music press and the i-D and The Face asked if I did portraits, and I started to look at these crazy magazines. They seemed to be full of empty pages that you could fill as long as you photographed the fashion. For years I was too shy to photograph women. I didn't know how to deal with them so I photographed men. I was too shy, my English wasn't good enough and something just didn't feel right about it. Why should I photograph this? Maybe it was the little by from the countryside next to the woods syndrome. How can I photograph these beautiful women? It just doesn't make any sense! A bit of a lack of self-confidence. Of course it has gone quite far the other way!" (Juergen Teller)

"I am loyal to my friends and working relationships. It seems to work." (Juergen Teller)

"No, not at all. I think it is more interesting to go through highly exciting times or difficult times and to keep working through a relationship. You can also go deeper and get better work."(Juergen Teller"

"I kind of think about what could be good for a particular magazine. The closest relationship I have is with Dennis at W. He has only missed one shoot of 20 that I have done over eight years, I think. We work on ideas right from the beginning and I do have control right until the end with the layout. It is really exciting in terms of commercial fashion magazine. I see so many fashion stories where you can't even see the fucking clothes. I have to photograph what they need me to, and photograph it right away. I have to be grow up about it. It's business." (Juergen Teller)

"Yes, in fact, in the Ukraine I thought, "what the fuck am I going to do?" I did photograph a lot in the street and in night-clubs and all these things, and I am thinking I can never be as good as Boris Mikhailov or as a Magnum Photographer. I am too lazy about it. I don't like voyeuristic pictures where the other person is not involved. I need direct contact and an understanding that you are willing to be photographed. I was still troubled. When I got there I was picked up by three limos, with bodyguards in bulletproof vests and guns. I was thinking ' this is insane.'You go into the subway and there is a train that is completely old-fashioned, with plasma screens  with fashion TV on. You go into the hotel, into the lobby, you go into the airport, into a Japanese restaurant, into a coffee shop, there's fashion TV fucking everywhere. Night clubs. Everywhere. After the first week I was dead, thinking,'What the fuck am I going to do?' Some of the photographs made it at the end. I was thinking, 'Where is the Ukraine going?' and I thought, the whole mess, it has to be a bonkers fashion story, I need the most expensive bag in the world, this 80k[UK pounds]Louis Vuitton handbag, with all the different bags in it. It is a handbag, 17 different handbags in one, extremely limited edition. I thought, 'I have got to have it . Have to have the model, in high heels, naked, with the handbag over her head, walking through the forest.' The forest reminded me of where I grew up. I really liked it. And that was the starting point, the key picture of the whole lot. They are so much into bodybuilding and there are gyms outside. For them it is normal to work out in the snow. There are these guys working out. It is not like gyms that we know. It is more like scrap metal from builders all fixed into the ground so that no one steals it. I used one key picture with a woman wearing really tight jeans, really big glasses and she starts working out. It is crazy. Everything is insane. So i thought, 'who can actually help me to produce that?' I called Dennis from W and explained that I was doing this thing for the Venice Biennale and he like, 'Oh my God.' He was obviously very keen  to do a collaboration, to be in the Venice Biennale as a fashion story. I used all these other pictures which I shot, and kept the W story very fashion. The first night I got to the Ukraine I met the Ukrainian playmate of the year. I was like 'Whoah! That is exciting'. I had Lara Stone, a Russian model, Irinia and her mum, as well as the playmate. The Ukrainians wanted to do a press conference: 'Juergen Teller does a fashion story.' I thought no way, I don't need that. Then I thought, actually that is what exactly what I need, so I photographed the press conference too." (Juergen Teller)

"It depends. You look at the clothes and think who would be possible for the mens, the womens', the young line. Sometimes I have the idea and sometimes he has the idea" (Juergen Teller)

"I have to have a relationship with the person or Marc has to have to have a relationship. For instance, Marc was so excited about Rufus Wainwright. I suggested Kirsten McMenamy or Roni Horn ad now we are using Harmony Korine. He suggested Meg White as he met her at a concert. I love her, she is great. Marc also asked me what I thought of Cindy Sherman. I analyzed the work and thought that one thing was pretty clear in her work: She hardly ever looks into the camera. Very rarely direct.  thought this is what I am quite good at, being direct. She is never with anyone else, always on her own. I thought which actor we could put with her, I thought what they have to do with this. SO I thought, 'oh it is going to have to be me again!'" (Juergen Teller)

Juergen Teller Interview. Ukraine / Venice Biennale.