Pimp of the Week: Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton is a total pimp. He was a seminal fashion photographer in the 1970s. I visited the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin and was spellbound by Newton's pictures -- always erotically charged, slightly deranged, subversive, and sinister in a way that exposed the fallacy of the luxe lifestyle.

His handwritten letters to various fashion editors are particularly amusing. He once wrote to Anna Wintour, "I love high riders like Gary Cooper used to wear." And he tended to sign his letters with: "From the old naughty boy!"

Newton once said about his preference of models, "Please make sure you get a gal with some muscle and meat on her -- none of those starved females!! Horrible matchstick women." He knew that the whole heroin/anorexic-chic look was useless in artistic photography, and useless in general.