Fashion photography

Edito

Fashion photography is never just about clothes. It is about staging, light, attitude and desire, but also about creating images that shape our perceptions of beauty, identity and society. Behind every photograph lies a series of choices, from commercial demands and the relationship with the model to the setting itself.

Over time, fashion photographers have developed visual languages that extend far beyond the pages of magazines and advertising campaigns, sometimes reinforcing established ideals, sometimes challenging them.

From the carefully constructed worlds of Giovanni Gastel and Gian Paolo Barbieri to Bert Stern’s vision of glamour, through Bettina Rheims’s explorations of identity and Oliviero Toscani’s provocative advertising campaigns, these five documentaries reveal how fashion photography has become a space for artistic experimentation, cultural reflection and the reinvention of visual codes.

5 films
3 h 29 min
Edito, 1 min read

28’

Giovanni Gastel | The Search for the Absolute

Italy - 2012 it en

The Pursuit of the Image

In Giovanni Gastel’s studio, every image is built with precision through light, composition and staging. An approach to fashion photography in which formal rigor gives each commission a distinctive visual identity.

25’

Gian Paolo Barbieri | The Art of Artifice

Italy - 2014 it en

The Art of Staging

Gian Paolo Barbieri approaches fashion photography as a form of staging in its own right. Sets, styling and light shape images in which artifice becomes a visual language.

Bert Stern | Original Madman - cover 16:9

87’

Bert Stern I Original Madman

United States - 2011 en en

A Certain Idea of Glamour

In Bert Stern’s work, fashion photography, advertising and celebrity are closely intertwined. His images helped shape the aesthetics of American glamour in the 1950s and 1960s, drawing on both advertising sophistication and popular culture.

43’

Bettina Rheims, My Life

Germany - 2005 fr en

The Relationship with the Model

For Bettina Rheims, fashion photography also depends on the relationship with the person being photographed. Time, trust and direction become essential to creating an image in which attitude and presence matter as much as the clothes.

25’

Oliviero Toscani in Oliviero Toscani

Italy - 2014 it en

Fashion as a Statement

With Oliviero Toscani, fashion and advertising photography become a field for visual and political experimentation. His campaigns shift attention away from the clothes themselves towards ideas, messages and the power of the image.

What you’ll find

Portraits of photographers, names everyone knows and others you’ll discover here. Films about street photography, war, fashion or portraiture, about printing and historical processes. About the trades of photography too. And then suggestions for going further, with Focuses, articles, interviews, bibliographies.

A small independent team

Documentaries about photography were rarely shown on television, and hardly at all on streaming platforms. We created The Darkroom Rumour to give them a place of their own. We are a small team, and we choose every film ourselves, with no school to defend.

Inspire your photography

In these films, you see photographers at work, in the field as well as in the darkroom. If you take pictures, you’ll often come away with an idea to try. If you simply like looking at images, you may start to see them differently.

How it works

You can watch the films online, anywhere in the world, on a computer, tablet or phone, and on TV by mirroring your phone’s or computer’s screen. Every film is available in French and English, with no ads. New releases come out on Saturday or Sunday. The trial lasts 7 days, and if you stop before day 8, you pay nothing.

The Darkroom Rumour on a TV, a computer, a tablet and a phone

Linked Articles

by Bettina Rheims

Bettina Rheims: Fragments of a Career

linked to Bettina Rheims, My Life

Bettina Rheims talks to Emmanuel Bacquet about her inspirations, her creative process and her artistic evolution. Learn how her projects, from the Gender Studies series to portraits of incarcerated women, reflect a growing commitment and an ongoing quest to capture the essence of her subjects, trans…

Desire, Genius and Contradiction: Bert Stern, Behind the Myth

by Shannah Laumeister

Desire, Genius and Contradiction: Bert Stern, Behind the Myth

linked to Bert Stern I Original Madman

Photographer Bert Stern helped define the visual language of postwar America, creating some of the era’s most iconic images. In this interview, filmmaker Shannah Laumeister looks back on the seven years she spent filming Bert Stern: Original Madman, and on the intimacy, trust and contradictions that…

Further exploration

Selected bibliography

Giovanni Gastel | The Search for the Absolute

• Luca Stoppini (ed.), Giovanni Gastel. Rewind, Umberto Allemandi & C., 2026 (in English and Italian).

• Giovanni Gastel, The People I Like, Skira, 2020 (in English and Italian). Publisher

• Eugénie Shinkle, Fashion Photography: The Story in 180 Pictures, Aperture / Thames & Hudson, 2017. Libraries

• Martin Harrison, Appearances: Fashion Photography Since 1945, Jonathan Cape, 1991.

• Nancy Hall-Duncan, The History of Fashion Photography, Alpine Book Company, 1979. Libraries

Gian Paolo Barbieri | The Art of Artifice

• Gian Paolo Barbieri, A History of Fashion, Photology, 2002 (in Italian and English).

• Gian Paolo Barbieri, Dark Memories, Skira, 2013 (in Italian and English).

• Gian Paolo Barbieri, Skin, Silvana Editoriale, 2015 (in Italian and English).

• Maria Luisa Frisa and Stefano Tonchi (eds.), Italian Eyes: Italian Fashion Photographs from 1951 to Today, Charta, 2005. Libraries

Bert Stern I Original Madman

• Robert A. Sobieszek, Bert Stern: Adventures, Bulfinch Press / Little, Brown, 1997.

• Bert Stern and Annie Gottlieb, The Last Sitting, William Morrow, 1982.

• Bert Stern and Annie Gottlieb, Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting, Schirmer Art Books, 1992. Libraries

• Eugénie Shinkle, Fashion Photography: The Story in 180 Pictures, Aperture, 2017. Libraries

Bettina Rheims, My Life

• Bettina Rheims and Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen, Détenues, Gallimard, 2018 (in French). Libraries

• Patrick Remy (ed.), Bettina Rheims, Taschen, 2017 (multilingual). Publisher · Libraries

• Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly, Chambre close, Schirmer Mosel, 2007. Libraries

• Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly, I.N.R.I., The Monacelli Press, 1999.

• Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly, Animal, Gina Kehayoff Verlag, 1998. Libraries

• Bettina Rheims, Modern Lovers, Edition Braus, 1998. Libraries

Oliviero Toscani in Oliviero Toscani

• Oliviero Toscani, Oliviero Toscani: More Than Fifty Years of Magnificent Failures, Carlton Books / Welbeck, 2016.

• Lorella Pagnucco Salvemini, United Colors: The Benetton Campaigns, Scriptum Editions, 2002. Libraries

• Jonathan Mantle, Benetton, Sphere, 2000.

• Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Libraries

• Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, SAGE Publications Ltd, 2016. Publisher · Libraries

Online

Giovanni Gastel | The Search for the Absolute

• Inside Fashion Photography: The Story in 180 Pictures, Eugénie Shinkle, Aperture, 2018.

• A Century of Fashion in 12 Iconic Photographs, Aperture, 2017.

• Cecil Beaton, an introduction, Victoria and Albert Museum.

• The Same, but Different: Nicholas Alan Cope on Photographing for the Manus × Machina Catalogue, Rachel High, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016.

Gian Paolo Barbieri | The Art of Artifice

• The biography of Gian Paolo Barbieri, Fondazione Gian Paolo Barbieri.

• A model spills her handbag: Gian Paolo Barbieri's best photograph, Chris Broughton, The Guardian, 2023.

• The 60s photographer who redefined fashion imagery, i-D.

• The story behind Gian Paolo Barbieri's cinematic fashion photography, which helped define the 1990s, Zoe Whitfield, Wallpaper*, 2025.

• How to Create Legacy With Your Photos: Talking With Gian Paolo Barbieri, Fstoppers, 2022.

Bert Stern I Original Madman

• The Story Behind Marilyn Monroe's Unbearably Poignant Final Portraits, Robin Muir, British Vogue, 2026.

• 100 Years of Fashion Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum.

• Marilyn Monroe Centennial 2026, The Last Sitting, The Bert Stern Trust.

• Richard Avedon, Marilyn Monroe, actress, New York, May 6, 1957, The Museum of Modern Art.

Bettina Rheims, My Life

• 5 Lessons in Gender Subversion from Photographer Bettina Rheims, Sleek, 2018.

• Bettina Rheims, a major figure in the world of portrait photography, discusses her remarkable forty-year career, Charlotte Jansen, podcast, Dior Talks, 2020.

• The Bettina Rheims exhibition at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, Maud Charmoy, Vogue France, 2016.

• Xippas, website.

Oliviero Toscani in Oliviero Toscani

• How photographer Oliviero Toscani and Benetton changed advertising, i-D.

• Looking at death in the Face, press release, Benetton Group.

• Artistic strategies in Oliviero Toscani's advertising, Cătălin Soreanu, PDF, Klironomy, 2021.

• Benetton's (In)Equality: A Semiotic Reading, Hianly Muljadi, Sonny Angjaya and Joanna Deborah, Paradigma.

• Death as a Salesman: Benneton Ad Campaign Comes to Death Row, Prison Legal News, 2000.

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