Guy Bourdin (2 December 1928 – 29 March 1991), was a French artist and fashion photographer known for his highly stylized and provocative images.
"While conventional fashion images make beauty and clothing their central elements, Bourdin’s photographs offer a radical alternative.
At the age of eighteen Bourdin embarked on a cycling tour in Provence during which he met art-dealer Lucien Henry.
Bourdin passed six months living at Henry's house where he concentrated on painting and drawing until it was time for his mandatory military service.
When he returned to Paris after his service, he supported himself with a number of menial jobs, including as a salesman of camera lenses and also continued to paint, draw and take pictures.
His quirky anthropomorphic compositions, intricate mise-en-scene ads were recognised as distinctly Bourdin-esque and were always eagerly anticipated by the media.
[7] Guy Bourdin was among the first to imagine fashion photographies that contained fascinating narratives, dramatic effects with intense color saturation, hyper-realism and cropped compositions while he established the idea that the product is secondary to the image.
Evident through astute reading of his compositional and thematic presentation, Bourdin profited from the influence of a diverse collection of contemporaries: first and foremost, his mentor Man Ray, but also the photographer Edward Weston, surrealist painters Magritte and Balthus, and Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel.