Today we were shown the famous portrait photographer, Martin Schoeller (German, born March 12, 1968.) We learnt that he is a freelance photographer who is best known for his portraits of both celebrities and ordinary people.

Schoeller studied photography at Lette Verein, in Berlin. He worked as a photographer in Berlin before emigrating to the United States in 1993. Once in the United States, he settled in New York, where he worked as an assistant to the celebrity and fashion photographer, Annie Leibovitz. Schoeller worked for Leibovitz for three years before deciding to become an independent freelance photographer in 1996. Three years later, he began contributing photographs regularly to the New Yorker. Over the next ten years, he contributed portrait photographs to a variety of magazines, including Entertainment Weekly, The Outsider, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Esquire.

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His work depicts both celebrities and ordinary people in highly detailed close-up portraits. His work is notably influenced by photographers such as August Sander, whose lifelong focus was also the subject of portraiture. Schoeller’s stylistic hallmarks include even lighting, standardized cropping, and a medium tonal range.

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Schoeller’s portraits are exhibited and collected internationally, appearing in solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States, as well as part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Martin currently lives and works in New York City.