Bruce Weber

Bruce Weber was born on March 29, 1946. He is an American photographer who is mostly a commercial photographer. He is most known for his photographs for Calvin Klein, the "underwear photos". His photos are also the black and white shots seen in Abercrombie stores nationwide. His background is in theatre and he briefly worked in film making and modeling before taking advice from Diane Arbus and studying under Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research. His first solo showcase at the Razor Gallery got him work with Glamour and GQ, respectively. He soon landed an editorial with Vogue in 1978. He's been in the National Portrait Gallery and Parco Exposure Gallery. He has a permanent collection at MOMA Paris.

He is most known for black and white photography, but at one point he did shoot a lot of color. When he could still get it, he preferred Kodachrome 25 due to the quality of the color emulsions. Now he prefers black and white due to the options he has with expressing emotion. He still shoots film almost exclusively. A lot of the golden retrievers that are in some of his shots are his own personal dogs, he owns six. Jane Goodall is one of his favorite people he has ever got to photograph.

I personally do not enjoy commercial photography. But his portraiture work with celebrities interests me because he tends to express the subject very well in the shots. The black and white lends itself to the emotion because you don't have the distraction of the color.