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Philipp Haemmerle is perhaps the hottest, most in-demand set designer/art director/style maker for some of the biggest names in fashion and photography. Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti, Bruce Weber, Tom Munro, Paolo Roversi, Richard Burbridge…they all have Philipp on their sets for the biggest campaigns in fashion. Not bad for a guy who got his start as a performance artist on the streets of New York.
I got a call from Florian Fritzsche a few weeks ago…head out to Industry City where Philipp has his studio and come back with some cool shit…here’s how it went…
His studio is huge, has outrageous light pouring through walls of industrial windows…and under it’s other name, Sunset Studios, doubles as a rental photo space. I really didn’t wanna do a literal portrait of a guy building sets, but the first thing I saw when I entered was a gigantic sculptural piece of driftwood…
…but when Philipp arrived, we had to move quickly, cuz as nice as that light was, it was moving fast…
With a little shift to the left, plus some attitude from Philipp and this shoot was making itself…
Next, we simply did a 180 for a view in the other direction…
Finally, Philipp suggested we try to do something that showed off his great view…a view that went all the way from the Statue of Liberty to Lower Manhattan…
…his artistic intuition paid off…that’s the shot Die Zeit chose for the feature…
Thanks to Florian and photo director Jutta Schein for the opportunity.
Damn Ugly Photography 