It was the late eighties and launching my career at the “Super House” of models with John Casablancas at Elite Model Management in New York City when I was recruited to work at the radical boutique agency City Models in Paris with Louise Despointes. If you would have visited me at City in 8th arrondissement of Paris you would have heard the names of Kristien McMenamy, Carla Bruni, Peter Lindberg, Steve Hiett, and Arthur Elgort echoing through wide french hallways and flooding into the front room of the agency. It was in this grand foyer and for the first time I met a young, passionate and enthusiastic Henry Leutwyler. He immediately lured me with his images and stories without fashion models.
We started a friendship. From Paris to New York, during and after representing models at City and launching my own agency Company Management. Other then our common interest in photography, pop culture, dance, fashion and entertainment we share an understanding and respect for history, the industry, and a love for the country of Jordan. It’s a friendship that has lasted over 30 years with many special stories which include my family and his.
This inaugural edition of Life Edited celebrates Henry’s 40 year career and extraordinary accolades which include 10 books with Steidl publishing, covers of the New York Times and National Geographic, and exhibitions around the world. His artist’s approach to documenting people and objects is brave. Henry has the ability to capture an image that transcends time and archive moments that puts a light on an image and tells a thousand stories.
-Michael Flutie
Philippe Halsman’s Camera
This camera [previous page] belonged to Philippe Halsman. It was custom made, under his engineering, by an American company called Fairchild. And why is this camera—or, more important, why is Philippe Halsman important to me? I came to New York for the first time with my father in 1979, when I was 17, and I followed him throughout the city. He wanted to see a lot of things that I wasn’t interested in, but I insisted on going to the ICP [International Center of Photography].
Philippe Halsman had an enormous retrospective at ICP. I adored his work; I still do today. I live in New York now, and ten years ago, I sat next to a lovely woman at a fundraiser who happened to be Philippe Halsman’s daughter. We exchanged numbers, and for the next few years, she called me consecutively, inviting me uptown to meet her son, look at the foundation and visit the archive. I was busy, but five or six years later, I finally I said OK. That’s when I reunited with Irene and met Oliver.
I asked if I could see a pair of Philippe’s glasses or his passport. I love passports. They said, “Why don’t you come up and look at the archive?” In carefully kept in boxes, I discovered a gigantic library with his entire life in it. After that meeting, I thought to myself, “Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever documented the life of a legendary photographer through his objects. Let me try to convince the family and the foundation to allow me to do it.” It took a while, but we did it. This project was the last one I did in New York before closing my studio in 2017. Closing my studio doesn’t mean I no longer work, it only means that I work differently and in many places—I’m much more mobile. This camera is so important to me because it’s a flashback to my childhood and the first time I visited New York; not knowing that I’d spend most of my time there and much more time in America than in Switzerland.
Yves Saint-Laurent & René Gruau, Figaro Madame 1987
The Yves Saint Laurent portrait next to René Gruau, who is an incredible fashion illustrator, was my first assignment in France. I have to say, it’s not a picture I love—you should be able to do better than this when you have Saint Laurent in front of your camera, but I was scared shitless. I had an editor breathing down my neck: Nicole Crassat, one of the best fashion editors at French Elle. Halfway through my first roll of film, she asked me in French, “Are you done now?” I was like, “No, I’m not.” I wish I could’ve photographed Saint Laurent again, alone, better than this. But it’s not going to happen; same applies to René Gruau. Those two men are legendary fashion icons, and I just don’t think I did it right. This is the worst portrait I’ve ever taken. I didn’t see the reflection of the umbrella in the background before it was too late, and you can see my head in the reflection between Saint Laurent and René Gruau. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s a very good picture. Whenever I photograph people, or whenever I photograph any assignment, I’m nervous. My stomach’s turning; I’m sweating; I’m just nervous. And imagine, I was a really young photographer.
Karl Lagerfeld, Madame Figaro, 1988
I arrived at Karl Lagerfeld’s Hôtel Particulier in Paris, and his butler opens the door. I peek inside; it’s more beautiful than Versailles. I walk up the stairs. I’m given time to set up—back in the day, I did everything on my own, which is the way to do it, I think—and Lagerfeld walks in. He sees that I’m sweating and nervous because I was only halfway ready, but he was very gracious. He said, “Henry, why don’t you take a bit longer? I’ll come back in 15 minutes. Would you like some water?” His butler brings me water, and Lagerfeld comes back. I like Lagerfeld’s picture very much. He was a real gentleman—very kind, very funny, very smart. We said goodbye, and he left. I was packing up my gear and folding up my tripod, and he comes back with four Lagerfeld shopping bags. They were huge, filled with Lagerfeld products: bathroom, perfume, shampoo, and God knows what. I think I lived off these four bags for two years in Paris. Every picture has a story like this. Ever portrait is an experience. Every portrait is an event. You always learn something, and I’ve learned that I love people.
After Yves Saint Laurent, René Gruau and Karl Lagerfeld, magazines began noticing my pictures and commissioning more and more of them. Helmut Newton, Florence Griffith Joyner, Julian Schnabel, Roberto Benigni—the list goes on. I started working for Madame Figaro, which was my beginning in Paris, then French Vogue and French Glamour. I did a lot of advertising, portraits, dance, photography, of course, and a lot of music photography and record covers. But by the end of ‘94, mid-’95, I wanted to leave Paris. I thought, “Ten years in Paris is enough. Let’s try to move to New York.” So in December ‘95, I hopped on a plane, and I moved to New York.
Frank Tats, photographed in NYC, self assigned, 1996
I photographed around 600 portraits in Paris and worked at least 300 days a year in studios until I moved to New York. I would like to add: Why am I moving to New York? Because around ‘95, the magazine covers were no longer model covers; they were celebrity covers, which is what I liked to do. So I thought, “I photographed most of the European celebrities. Why don’t I go to the U.S. and figure out if I can do it in New York?” And it worked out. I arrived in New York in December 1995, and I became a dad in February 1996. I was in the middle of change: life in a new country, life as a new father, and I wanted to find a new way—a different way—to photograph in New York.
I went out and bought a Linhof 4x5 Master Technika Camera. This is the first picture I did with that camera; it was my first test in New York. I always thought construction workers in New York looked incredible, so I started photographing them on high beams with hammers—or anything on New York roofs. This is the first picture I took with my Master Technika on a New York rooftop in 1996.
You have to understand: I went from a very good, a very heavy, a very powerful portfolio in Europe to a portfolio of nice pictures of European people that most Americans in New York didn’t know about. So getting access wasn’t easy, but I got it through The New York Times Magazine. Kathy Ryan was the first one who gave me covers and full pages in The New York Times Magazine that then led to 50 Cent, American Vogue and Broadway. I didn’t knock on Broadway’s door, Broadway knocked on my door because they saw images of mine they liked in magazines. They said, “Hey, if you can do it for The New York Times, you can do it for us.” That’s how it happened—that’s how George Pitts happened; that’s how Alan Cumming happened; that’s how Ben Vereen happened. And over the years, that’s how American Vogue happened, with Michael Fassbender and many more.
The relationship I try to have within the time of a portrait sitting is something I’ve worked on for years. This is not a photo booth. This is a human being with emotion. This is a human being with—how can I explain this? I’m not interested in the flat beauty. I’m interested in the inner beauty. I’m interested in getting something out of these people. Of course, you can make them laugh; you can make them smile, which is what most of the photographers do. You can make them cry, right? What I like is figuring out who they are. Are they vulnerable? Are they curious? Are they inquisitive? Are they sad? We all know that eyes are the mirror of the soul. I try to go through the mirror and reach for who’s behind the eyes. A portrait should be a reflection of someone’s soul rather than the reflection of someone’s skin and beauty.
Idina Menzel, Vanity Fair Magazine, 2003
When you wake up in the morning, you never know what kind of email sits in your inbox. That’s the beauty of my life as a photographer. The most exciting thing, for me, is waking up, putting my glasses on, grabbing a coffee, opening my computer and checking my email. I got an email from Vanity Fair asking me if I was interested in photographing the cast of “Wicked” as a group photograph. I did the assignment for Vanity Fair; I did the group shot, but I also photographed everybody individually, because they’re all individually interesting. Everyone is beautiful; everyone is interesting. Same trick of getting someone before they leave the studio—I have my unloaded film holder in the camera; I have my finger on the trigger, and I tell Idina, “Thank you so much.” She’s happy. She smiles. She walks away. At that moment, I took one more picture, and I think it’s the perfect picture. She’s holding her hand against the frame of the four by five. The hat is in the perfect position. The negative space on the right is perfect, and the broom is just on the bottom. While this is luck, you also learn how to manipulate and create a possibility, an opportunity of luck in photography—this is one of them.
Annie on Broadway, Vanity Fair, 2013
She’s probably in character. It’s all about how you approach your subject—how you talk to your subject will differ from a little girl to an older woman to a politician. I remember this specific case for Vanity Fair. No music, no talk. I don’t want people all around her. I want to be alone. If you don’t get the shot within a maximum of three to five minutes, you never will. Unless you’re a professional model, nobody wants to stand in front of a camera for an hour. We got this picture in two or three minutes. When you get the shot, you say, “OK, thank you very much.” And that’s it. I don’t call them back. I don’t try another outfit. This is it. Editors within our industry aren’t always happy when I know I have it—when I don’t want to go further. You risk getting something worse published if you go any further. So, I don’t give people the option to choose something that I don’t love. I’m not saying people have bad taste, but people often have different taste than mine, and choice is a dangerous concept. As soon as you have choice, you need to argue. I think I delivered only this picture. Nothing else. There’s no first choice, second choice or third choice.
Michael Gorbachev, Paris 1992
In sumner 1992, I was vacationing in Rome, I heard Michael Gorbachev was in Paris, at a press conference, talking about the future of the USSR and the release of his memoirs. Through my agent at the time I asked Florence Moll to organize time for me to photograph Mr. Gorbachev. She got me access to a press event with the implicit request that I would NOT photograph his birthmark…Do first, apologize later. I got a few minutes with Mr. Gorbachev did some regular portraits, thanked him for his time, stood up and turned around and of course, “mistakingly” took one last photograph from above. Nobody realized or objected. The whole point was to photograph the birthmark on his forehead, which to me, always embodied the United States. This is the only photograph I have ever released for publication
Megan LeCrone, NYC Ballet, 2012
I’m not ashamed to talk about my love affair with New York City Ballet. The same agent who got the phone call for “Design for Living” gets a phone call from New York City Ballet asking if I’d like to come up to Lincoln Center for a meeting to discuss a potential campaign. We went, and I got the job—four days of photography. The back story is: Every photographer who did a campaign typically gets dismissed after the campaign, and the next photographer moves in. The last day, the last picture, Peter Martins, who was sitting next to me, stands up, goes in front of the camera—I mean, maybe 20 feet away—and about a hundred other people on set, and he starts applauding. He looks at the marketing director and the press director and says, “Book him again” and walks out.
I became friends with New York City Ballet after doing six campaigns with them. One day, I asked if they’d be interested in allowing me to do a book project, if the photography is good enough, on the live backstage. Opening the door to backstage is not something that dance companies like, but, again, Peter Martins allowed me to do it, and this photograph of Megan LeCrone’s feet has somehow become iconic. It’s very rare that you see the pain and the hard work behind the beauty. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you’ll see this same picture taken just after the performance with both ballet feet covered—not one covered and the other uncovered. Over the course of this book project, I saw the damage on the feet. One night, I asked to photograph three ballerinas’ feet identically with a point-and-shoot camera. It took 30 seconds, and this is it.
National Geographic Gender Revolution Cover 2017
The New York Times Magazine and its photography director, Kathy Ryan, have been instrumental in my life in New York. I’ve photographed many covers; many inside stories; many portfolios, but covers are always the cherry on the cake. In my younger years, when I didn’t know that fashion photography was an option, I always assumed that you were a real photographer if you had a Newsweek, TIME, Fortune, National Geographic or LIFE Magazine cover. I had all of them except National Geographic, and one day I decided I was going to try to work for them. I called them up. Sarah Leen was their director of photography, and she said, “Oh, we know who you are. Yes, come to Washington and make a presentation.” I was supposed to present in front of the entire team of, oh, I don’t know, fifty. So you can imagine my nerves.
I didn’t show up. I was scared shitless. I didn’t even apologize or email. I just didn’t show up. Two years later, I called again and apologized, and I just told Sarah that I was scared, and that I’d like to come again. I didn’t show up again. I was still scared. And maybe a year later, I emailed again and seriously apologized and said, “Listen, I’ll come now.” It was a Friday at 11:00 a.m. I went to Washington, made my presentation, showed my books and, at the end, Sarah said, “Thank you very much, Henry. We’ll call you when something appropriate comes up,” which is the kiss of death. You know you failed miserably when you hear that comment.
So I went to see the Smithsonian then took the train back home to New York. On Tuesday morning, I have an email again in my inbox, and the subject of the email said, “Man! I have something for you. Please call me.” I thought it was a joke, so I didn’t call back for a day or two. Then, I got a second email that said, “Did you get my email?” So, at that point, I thought, “OK, it’s not a joke.” I called back, and Sarah told me she had something for me. Mind you, this is my first job for National Geographic. She said, “Would you be interested in photographing a Gender cover for National Geographic?” And I fell off my chair.
If you look carefully, you’ll see everybody touching someone. I didn’t tell anyone, but I wanted a physical interconnection between them all. It’s a family of gender, it’s not a specific gender, and that was my goal. I believe this is what National Geographic chose. I’m bringing home one comment: Most of my subjects that day either shook hands or gave me a hug, but all of them thanked me. They said, “Thank you for doing this.” I mean, that’s what I’m bringing home as the gift of the assignment—some form of gratitude and love from the people I photographed. I’m still getting emails from some of them today. It might sound shallow. It’s obvious that I like what I do. I like photography, and I like people, but I want to be useful. I want to try. I don’t want to say “change the world,” but I at least want to change the perception people have of certain subjects. I always try.
We’re in 2022. I became a real working photographer in 1987. Within 35 years—sometimes 200 assignments a year—I’ve had 7,000 assignments. Some lasted a day, some lasted a week, some lasted a month. And thousands of them, nearly two-thirds, were portraits—my main subject of photography. Every single one of my friends, including my family, always wondered why I didn’t do a book of portraits. I refuse. To this day, I haven’t done one. First, you can’t beat Mr. Penn and Avedon’s photography. Second, I always believed that a photography book shouldn’t be an editorial self-promotion to get more work; it should be a personal project. So, I bypassed the concept of Henry Leutwyler portraits and focused on something else: Who are the heroes of my childhood? James Dean, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Andy Warhol, Elvis, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Chaplin—the list goes on. I made that list 15 or 16 years ago, and I started figuring out the objects. Where would they be? What hasn’t been seen? What do people know? What don’t they know? Objects talk—they give me information on how they were used. To me, they’re portraits. So I went on a 12-year hunt to produce documents that are now portraits of my heroes through their belongings. A book came out of it called “Document,” and here you see a few of those images, from violent crime and genius music to incredible acting and fantastic paintings. This is my portrait book.
Yes, 98% of my heroes are dead, but you know what? As a young photographer—when I was 20, 25, 30—they were still alive, but I didn’t have access to them. I never photographed Warhol. James Dean died when I was too young. Elvis, the same. I did a portrait of my heroes in still life. Again, objects talk to me, these are not still life. These are portraits. They talk to me, and I hope they talk to others.
Massimo Vignelli Pencil, Personal Project, 2009
The pencil that you’re seeing here is Massimo Vignelli’s pencil. Massimo Vignelli was a legendary Italian graphic designer in New York. When I photographed him for Graphis Magazine assignment, I found his Caran d’Ache pencil on his desk. I asked his assistant if I could borrow it to photograph; I thought it’d be an iconic portrait of its owner. She said no, but after going back to my studio and calling her, she agreed. I had a text exchange with her the other day, and she said, “I remember delivering the pencil to your studio so you could photograph it.” There are so many stories about that pencil. If it went missing, the entire office would have to stop and look for it. It was the holy grail. When I reached the great heights of Massimo’s approval, he gifted one to me. It’s one of my most precious possessions. Mine has a blue cap. Lella, Massimo Vignelli’s wife—her pencil was yellow.
Objects talk the same way a portrait of a person does—who they are as a person or how they feel at that given moment. I started doing portraits of people through their objects, and it’s a very documentarian approach to still life. It’s not art. It’s just a document of how Massimo Vignelli held his pencil. You see the wear and tear; you know the color; you know what kind of lead thickness he used. You know the color of his cap, and you just heard the explanation of what it meant to Massimo Vignelli. This was his only one. All of the incredible work he did through his life was done with that pencil.
Charter Arms .38 caliber revolver used to kill John Lennon, photographed in NY 2005
I got an email from a magazine called Mother Jones, who I like very much. They asked me if I wanted to work on a story about all the illegal guns that travel from Miami into New York on Interstate 95. We’re talking bazookas to God knows what—AK-47s. I did that picture, and on the way out, there was a revolver, a .38 Special, on a little chair with a newspaper clipping. I’m curious, so I looked, and it was the newspaper clipping from the day John Lennon was killed. I asked the sergeant, “What’s the relation between the gun and the newspaper clipping?” He said, “Well, that’s the gun that killed John Lennon.” And I looked at him and said, “I mean, just like that?” And he said, “Yes, that’s just a gun that killed another dude.” I said, “Oh. Do you mind if we photograph it?” He said, “Just be quick because I have to go for lunch.” So, we set up the whole thing again, and I photographed it. I was bold enough to ask if they had bullets. He said yes, but that they were somewhere in a drawer, so we packed and left. This is as sad as music is. I mean, imagine John Lennon still alive.
Tiffany’s Necklace, 2021 Autumn / Winter Advertising Campaign for Tiffany’s
I’ve worked for magazines. I’ve worked on book projects. I’ve been privileged enough to have had a lot of solo shows around the world, including museum shows, but we haven’t discussed advertising. I haven’t photographed advertising as much as I have editorial work, but still quite a bit over the decades: Tod’s, Issey Miyake, New York City Ballet, a lot of beauty campaigns like Estée Lauder, Bobbi Brown, Shiseido. I’m photographing two advertising campaigns for Issey Miyake while I’m in Japan towards the end of the month. To me, there’s only one difference between editorial assignments and advertising assignments: You need to adhere to the brief very accurately, which isn’t the case in editorial. If I’m asked to photograph a portrait of Gorbachev, I’ll do whatever I see fit. With advertising, it’s different. We’re talking about a big investment from the client, and you need to turn that big investment into something visual that will fulfill their needs. It’s very specific. When it comes to still life or jewelry, advertising is an incredibly difficult, technical challenge. I can take a picture of a Caran d’Ache pencil in five minutes. This picture did not take five minutes. And thank God it’s digital, because imagine how long it would take if it was an 8x10 Chrome 20 years ago—it would take a day or two. This specific picture took four, five hours, and it ended up—including “Bird on a Rock” and three other images—becoming part of Tiffany’s worldwide autumn/winter 2021 campaign.
Sacred Dust, National Geographic 2021
With the homage to 9/11, I narrowed it down to the concept of “recovered on site.” Not only did I read every description, but I also went into the archive with the protection gloves and goggles, the air protection, the whole nonsense. I looked like an astronaut. I opened every box. I looked at every object prior to photographing, which took a week. I handled most of the objects myself, in front of the camera, with the help of the archivist. You can smell death. When you open the bags and boxes and take the objects out, the smell of September 11 is right in front of you. You’re touching a watch from someone who passed. You’re photographing the helmet of a firefighter who died—who was crushed and burned. Any normal person would cry. I mean, one of my assistants started shaking. And even though I refuse, or I refused all my career, to go on assignment in a war zone out of lack of courage, I think this was the assignment where I felt closest to conflict.
Rejection Letter, Centre D’Enseignement Professionel, 1981
Last but not least, I’ve traveled with this rejection letter from the moment I got it until today as we speak. It has followed me from city to city, from continent to continent. In the beginning, I taped it in my first portfolio when I came to Paris. Now it’s taped in the closet of my apartment in New York to remind me—and I’d like you to remember this too—to never, ever fear rejection. Whatever rejection you might encounter, never listen. You can do it. This letter, from a photography school in Switzerland, dates back to 1981; forty-one years have passed. It confirms that I failed the entry exam and wishes me good luck in my future career in a very sarcastic, polite manner. Fuck rejection letters. It’s a reminder that every young photographer, every artist, every musician, every painter, everyone can succeed if you put your heart into it. That mentality is what has enabled me to survive as a photographer this long. The road has been filled with roadblocks, rejection letters, nos, etc., but I’m a believer, and I always look up. I always tell my kids to dream big.