Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin may not be household names, but the Dutch photographers’ haunting and timeless images could soon be coming to an affluent household near you. “This actually started nine years ago when Inez was pregnant,” Matadin tells Style.com of their new tome, Pretty Much Everything, which compiles 26 years of work and costs a cool $700. “Karl Lagerfeld said, ‘Oh, you’re pregnant. You should do a book.’” And that was that.
The book in question features 666 iconic photos including a makeup-free Kate Moss, a foreboding image of Alexander McQueen, and an acquiescent Bill Murray. “One of our favorite moments is making an incredible portrait of someone that you admire that has done either an interesting movie or is a great musician,” van Lamsweerde says. “Bill Murray was funny because when Inez put the flowers in his beard he said, ‘Do people ever ask why?,’ Vinoodh says. “I said to him, No. “He said, ‘OK.’ And that was that.” Other subjects include Gisele Bündchen, who the couple insists is more “interested in the process of creating an image” than looking sexy, and Lady Gaga, whom they dub “incredibly beautiful.”
The secret to the photography duo’s success seems to lie in their willingness to adapt: a 1994 photo for The Face, a studio image of a model juxtaposed against a stock image of a cityscape “changed our lives,” they say. “The hyperrealism of the equal sharpness of both background and foreground could never be achieved in (real-life) photography.” To that end, the couple is also adept at social media, to which Gaga introduced to them, natch. “It’s like having your own magazine,” Vinoodh gushes of Tumblr. “It’s like you can do whatever you want.”
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