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"Too Many Naked Women" - By Joel Stratte-McClure
http://www.salon.com/07/features/helmut.html
http://www.salon.com/07/features/helmut.html
Published Aug 30, 2007
Helmut Newton has had it with female flesh. The photographer who gained worldwide
notoriety for his coldly stylish portraits of naked women says he will never shoot nudes
again.
"I just had a bellyful and realized I had shot enough nudes to last a lifetime," Newton says,
pointing to a gigantic female nude photograph in his Monaco apartment's guest bathroom.
"In fact, although I have no idea of the number, I think I photographed too many naked
women."
The tanned and trim 75-year-old photographer leads a visitor through his expansive
19th-floor high-rise apartment and office complex and onto an outdoor balcony which
features a picture-postcard view of the Monte Carlo Casino, the yacht-filled port and the
tiny principality's salmon-pink palace.
It was on this very balcony that Newton once posed one of his trademark power models
against the Mediterranean backdrop -- first dressed, then wearing only high heels.
But now the German-born photographer has put all that flesh behind him. No more shots
of predatory naked women wearing chains and dog collars. No Amazonian voyeurs or
sadomasochistic high-society belles. Those decadent scenarios with million-dollar models
posing as midgets and wearing saddles -- images found in books like "Private Property"
(Schirmer's Visual Library/Norton, 1990) and his most recent book, "Helmut Newton
Illustrated #4" (Schirmer-Mosel, 1995), are a thing of the past. He has even bid adieu to
his hard-edged fashion shots. In the new buttoned-up dispensation, the phrase "very
Helmut Newton" will no longer be accompanied by knowing leers.
What was behind his decision? Not protests by feminists, or age, or mellowness, Newton
says. It was just too much skin.
"It is like when I got tired of doing the bondage-dominated fashion shots in the early
1980s," he says. "I just couldn't bring anything new or fresh to the subject any more."
Sounding like a former smoker, Newton says, "I now have a strong reaction against the
exposed female body. Nudes will no longer be a subject for me -- though I might regret
saying that the next time I see a beautiful girl on the beach." After interrupting himself
briefly to address his assistant in excellent French, he continues, "Today I have a strong
desire to photograph women clothed from head-to-foot with hardly an inch of flesh. It will
be a challenge to work under such restraints."
Newton moves away from the balcony to a far corner of his living room and opens a door
leading into [More love: Tom Tomorrow's advice for singles]a two-room office which looks
beyond Karl Lagerfeld's villa "La Vigie" and the Monte-Carlo Sporting Club to the
Mediterranean Sea. Amid the Memphis-style contemporary furniture and photos of Newton
with his wife is an inflatable doll still stuffed in her cardboard box. On one window sill are a
pair of handcuffs given to Newton by a policeman.
Newton and his Australian-born wife June, who married Helmut on May 13, 1948 and
assumed the nom de plume Alice Springs when she began her own photographic career 25
years ago, have lived at 7 avenue Saint-Roman in Monte-Carlo since 1981. He calls her
"Pussy" or "Junie"; she calls him "Helmie" or "Hel."
"I certainly wasn't devastated when Helmie made the sudden decision to quit shooting
nudes," June admits. "Like many of his decisions, it really was very sudden. He just
decided one day to stop doing nudes and that was that. But he's always photographed
whatever he wanted to despite what I thought."
June says her husband's controversial images, which sometimes presented dressed men
dominating naked and subservient women, never bothered her.
"Helmie is nothing like his work," June continued. "That's another side, the dark side. I
don't know anything about that. With me, he is never suspicious and always extremely
sensual."
Newton says that his work with nudes served to liberate him. "The point of my
photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic
discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to," he says, as he walks by
blow-ups from the "Big Nudes" series which line his office. "The nudes and bondage shots
were my way of going beyond my own bounds. Now that I've done that, I want to return
to fashion with a fresh and mature eye and do more portraits.
"Women assume marvelous expressions when they look at themselves," Newton explains.
"They lose themselves in their own image. It's fascinating to observe and shoot. It really
inspires me physically and mentally."
Besides self-portraits, Newton has shot only one nude man -- actor Helmut Berger,
standing before a mirrored fireplace admiring his reflection in 1984. "I was never interested
in naked men," he remarks. "I've done quite a lot of nudes of myself. When I'm in a hotel
room and bored I'll get a camera and shoot myself in the mirror. But I haven't shown
many and I'm getting a bit old for that."
Yet whether his subject is man or woman, clothed or unclothed, Newton's forte is his role
as the grand seducer. "My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and
entertain," explains Newton, whose most recently "seduced" subjects include Monaco's
Princess Caroline and female cabinet ministers in the French government. "Most of my
work is meant to be funny. Because I'm quite timid myself, I try to determine whether my
subject will be receptive to a wild idea before I suggest anything. I would never force
anybody to do anything. I never push very far. I think subjects pose so openly for me
because I inspire confidence or because I'm older than most of them."
While he has sworn off flesh, the photographer will occasionally reminisce by taking a look
at one of his "Big Nudes" on the office wall or flipping through an old book of bondage
photos. But he says he doesn't get excited.
"The photographs don't arouse me," he concludes as he shows a visitor to the elevator.
"All I can think about is the hard work it took to make them. Look, I'm not an intellectual
-- I just take pictures."
Helmut Newton has had it with female flesh. The photographer who gained worldwide
notoriety for his coldly stylish portraits of naked women says he will never shoot nudes
again.
"I just had a bellyful and realized I had shot enough nudes to last a lifetime," Newton says,
pointing to a gigantic female nude photograph in his Monaco apartment's guest bathroom.
"In fact, although I have no idea of the number, I think I photographed too many naked
women."
The tanned and trim 75-year-old photographer leads a visitor through his expansive
19th-floor high-rise apartment and office complex and onto an outdoor balcony which
features a picture-postcard view of the Monte Carlo Casino, the yacht-filled port and the
tiny principality's salmon-pink palace.
It was on this very balcony that Newton once posed one of his trademark power models
against the Mediterranean backdrop -- first dressed, then wearing only high heels.
But now the German-born photographer has put all that flesh behind him. No more shots
of predatory naked women wearing chains and dog collars. No Amazonian voyeurs or
sadomasochistic high-society belles. Those decadent scenarios with million-dollar models
posing as midgets and wearing saddles -- images found in books like "Private Property"
(Schirmer's Visual Library/Norton, 1990) and his most recent book, "Helmut Newton
Illustrated #4" (Schirmer-Mosel, 1995), are a thing of the past. He has even bid adieu to
his hard-edged fashion shots. In the new buttoned-up dispensation, the phrase "very
Helmut Newton" will no longer be accompanied by knowing leers.
What was behind his decision? Not protests by feminists, or age, or mellowness, Newton
says. It was just too much skin.
"It is like when I got tired of doing the bondage-dominated fashion shots in the early
1980s," he says. "I just couldn't bring anything new or fresh to the subject any more."
Sounding like a former smoker, Newton says, "I now have a strong reaction against the
exposed female body. Nudes will no longer be a subject for me -- though I might regret
saying that the next time I see a beautiful girl on the beach." After interrupting himself
briefly to address his assistant in excellent French, he continues, "Today I have a strong
desire to photograph women clothed from head-to-foot with hardly an inch of flesh. It will
be a challenge to work under such restraints."
Newton moves away from the balcony to a far corner of his living room and opens a door
leading into [More love: Tom Tomorrow's advice for singles]a two-room office which looks
beyond Karl Lagerfeld's villa "La Vigie" and the Monte-Carlo Sporting Club to the
Mediterranean Sea. Amid the Memphis-style contemporary furniture and photos of Newton
with his wife is an inflatable doll still stuffed in her cardboard box. On one window sill are a
pair of handcuffs given to Newton by a policeman.
Newton and his Australian-born wife June, who married Helmut on May 13, 1948 and
assumed the nom de plume Alice Springs when she began her own photographic career 25
years ago, have lived at 7 avenue Saint-Roman in Monte-Carlo since 1981. He calls her
"Pussy" or "Junie"; she calls him "Helmie" or "Hel."
"I certainly wasn't devastated when Helmie made the sudden decision to quit shooting
nudes," June admits. "Like many of his decisions, it really was very sudden. He just
decided one day to stop doing nudes and that was that. But he's always photographed
whatever he wanted to despite what I thought."
June says her husband's controversial images, which sometimes presented dressed men
dominating naked and subservient women, never bothered her.
"Helmie is nothing like his work," June continued. "That's another side, the dark side. I
don't know anything about that. With me, he is never suspicious and always extremely
sensual."
Newton says that his work with nudes served to liberate him. "The point of my
photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic
discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to," he says, as he walks by
blow-ups from the "Big Nudes" series which line his office. "The nudes and bondage shots
were my way of going beyond my own bounds. Now that I've done that, I want to return
to fashion with a fresh and mature eye and do more portraits.
"Women assume marvelous expressions when they look at themselves," Newton explains.
"They lose themselves in their own image. It's fascinating to observe and shoot. It really
inspires me physically and mentally."
Besides self-portraits, Newton has shot only one nude man -- actor Helmut Berger,
standing before a mirrored fireplace admiring his reflection in 1984. "I was never interested
in naked men," he remarks. "I've done quite a lot of nudes of myself. When I'm in a hotel
room and bored I'll get a camera and shoot myself in the mirror. But I haven't shown
many and I'm getting a bit old for that."
Yet whether his subject is man or woman, clothed or unclothed, Newton's forte is his role
as the grand seducer. "My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and
entertain," explains Newton, whose most recently "seduced" subjects include Monaco's
Princess Caroline and female cabinet ministers in the French government. "Most of my
work is meant to be funny. Because I'm quite timid myself, I try to determine whether my
subject will be receptive to a wild idea before I suggest anything. I would never force
anybody to do anything. I never push very far. I think subjects pose so openly for me
because I inspire confidence or because I'm older than most of them."
While he has sworn off flesh, the photographer will occasionally reminisce by taking a look
at one of his "Big Nudes" on the office wall or flipping through an old book of bondage
photos. But he says he doesn't get excited.
"The photographs don't arouse me," he concludes as he shows a visitor to the elevator.
"All I can think about is the hard work it took to make them. Look, I'm not an intellectual
-- I just take pictures."
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