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And then the right time came and you did it. But how did it move on from being an ad campaign to being art?

I finished the campaign and then I was like, “Hang on a minute. I don’t really have to wear these silver underpants from Marc Jacobs just to shoot her.” The campaign I did for Marc with Cindy Sherman was similar. We kept on taking photos after the ads were done.

What’s the backstory for the Charlotte Rampling photos?

I thought it would be interesting to do self-portraits with Charlotte. I had no idea what it would be like, but I wanted to try it. And when I first talked to Charlotte about it, she said that she would normally never do any kind of advertising for any fashion client, but because it was me she was really pleased. She found it exciting.

It was more than just a fashion campaign though.

Right. It wasn’t just a photo of her wearing some of the clothes and a caption underneath that said, “Marc Jacobs, thank you very much.” We went on a journey together instead. I wanted to explore the idea of an intimate relationship between an older woman and me, a 40-year-old guy.

Was it sort of like acting?

Yeah. There were ideas set up, and then we tried them out on Polaroids and then moved on from there. For the book that we did after the campaign, there was a six-month period where I went to Paris on random weekends to shoot more pictures. Then I would go back to London, develop them, and have more ideas for things to do with her. Plus, she was losing weight and I was putting on weight, and I had a beard and then shaved it off.

You both physically changed a lot during it.

We had like five or six sessions. They were all shot in the same hotel, too.

So, to recap: You get to do whatever you want, and the people whose campaigns you do are always happy with the results. It’s pretty much utopia.

Nobody else does it. There’s no fashion designer who would do what Marc does with me. It’s a collaboration all the way through. For instance, it was Marc’s idea to use Winona Ryder and I was like, “That’s a great idea.” It was right when she was busted in an L.A. department store shoplifting Marc Jacobs clothing. That was the perfect moment to use her.

Was it hard to convince William Eggleston to be in a series of fashion ads?

Well, it took me a few days to make that phone call. I was too scared! But when I finally did, he said, “I’ll do anything for you.”

He’s an older photographer who inspired you. Are you aware of your influence on younger photographers?

I can see it, yeah. If it’s close to the bone, it’s really annoying. When it’s like a total rip-off…

You kind of get ripped off a lot.

Yeah. And then you think, “Oh god.” But the more it happens, the less you care.

What does a person have to do technically to copy you? How should one go about ripping off Juergen Teller?

[laughs] I don’t know. It’s just the surface of the photo that they’re copying anyway. Years ago, I was a bit concerned about it but now I’m kind of over it. I’m so excited about living in my own world that I don’t think about getting ripped off.

Right. I mean for your latest book, Nürnberg, you went back to Germany, where you’re from, and photographed all around a pretty notorious Nazi site. It’s so personal but still tells a universal story.

See? Nobody can rip that off. It’s my past, my present, and my future. It’s very specific to me. Someone can easily rip off a girl lying on the floor naked with a bright flash. Lots of people can do that with no problem.

Are you working on any new books now?

I’m going to do one that’s a collection of all the Marc Jacobs ads I’ve shot. It’s been a long time. There are a lot of things people forgot about… Jarvis Cocker, Thurston Moore, Meg White, Lisa Marie. It will be great to see them all together.

INTERVIEW BY JESSE PEARSON


JUERGEN TELLER DOES WHATEVER HE WANTS | 1 | 2 | 3 |

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