A well-known fashion photographer and filmmaker from America, Bruce Weber was born in 29th March 1946 in Pennsylvania. His fashion photographs appeared in 1970s for the first time in GQ. His agent and friend Nan Bush secured a contract in 1978 for Weber with the Federal Department Store to shoot the mail catalog of Bloomingdales. In 1980s, Weber came to public attention and in the 1990s he started taking commercial photos for Calvin Klein. His photo of Tom Hintaus for Klein has been an iconic image. He has also taken pictures to Ralph Lauren’s winter collection for 2006.
Some of Weber’s images were given national limelight. These pictures featured nude heterosexual duo facing one another while on a swing; Marcus Schenkenberg in loose dropping jeans; and two dressed men on bed. His work has also been a topic of controversy. For the SoHo Weekly, Weber photographed men wearing only underwear. At this time, Weber thought that his career is at stake and that he doesn’t like working in a lot of magazines since they have many issues and this is risky for him.
In the 1980s, Weber collaborated with Chris Isaak to take his picture for his album. In 1988, he photographed Isaak shirtless in bed for a fashion page in the magazine Rolling Stone. Weber was also the director of one of the Isaak’s music videos called Blue Spanish Sky.
In 1990 another controversial episode took place when he directed Being Boring by Pet Shop Boys. Female and male nudity in the video stopped it from being aired on United States most popular music channel MTV. Moving away from controversies, six years later, for the same group he directed another song Se a vida é in a water park in Florida. In 2002, he was the director of a song from Release album, titled I Get Along. Moreover, he has taken photos of Harry Connick, Jr. for Blue Light, Red Light – an album of 1991. Two years later, he photographed Jackson Browne for I’m Alive, 1993.
Weber seldom does color photography, however most of his works are monochrome. His works are collected in books, such as Looking Goor: A Guide For Men, 1977; Bruce Weber, 1983; The Sun and the Shade, 1983; O Rio de Janerio, 1986; Bruce Water, 1989; Sam Shephard, 1990; Bear Pond, 1990; Bruce Weber, 1991; Gentle Giants, 1994; The Chop Suey Club, 1999; Blood Sweat and Tears or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Fashion, 1999; and All American XII, 2012.
Apart from photography, Bruce Weber also made film on boxers in their teen years, and another on his adored dogs. Chop Suey (2000) was a much longer film by him. The photographer has also been the director of a documentary film Let’s Get Lost. Other films he has made are: Beauty Brothers, and Broken Noses 1987; Backyard Movie 1991; Gentle Giants, 1994; The Teddy Boys of the Edwardian Drape Society, 1996; A Letter to True, 2004; and Wine and Cupcakes in 2007.
His photos are in the permanent possession of Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Paris’s Museum of Modern Art. His work has been exhibited in New York’s Whitney Biennale, Venice’s Palazzo Fortuny, Switzerland’s Musee l’Elysee, Florence Biennale, London’s National Portrait Gallery, Los Angeles’s Fahey/Klein, Tokyo’s Parco Exposure Gallery, Washington, D.C’s Russell Senate Building, and Milan’s Galeria Corso Como.
