Hannes Schmid has been exhibited at various museums and galleries and published a number of books. He has lived in New York and Paris during the 80s, 90s when fashion became a central spot in photography. Through the decades, he has won different awards for his work, both in art and in philanthropy.
Born in 1946 in Zurich, Hannes Schmid is a photographer best known for his avant-garde approach in capturing pivotal moments in culture, nature and fashion. Mainly self-taught, and schooled at the Ruth Prowse School of Art in Capetown in the early 1970s, he took a strong interest in discovering new frontiers and this led him to travelling the world with nothing more than his camera. Unlike many in his league, he found his niche across genres with his works expressing and setting new tones or motions with the varied subjects he works with.
Having possibly one of the most extensive photographic archive of rockstars from the mid 70s to the early 80s, Schmid is probably a handful of photographers who have managed to document a generation of music movement from fans to performances and the private lives and lifestyle of these stars.
At a chance meeting, Schmid found his foothold into the fashion world. His cross-genres works had led him to gain recognition with some of the biggest fashion magazines and models. His works from the 80s and 90s with Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar etc are visually inspiring and editors who had worked with him, always loved to re-engage him for the stories he wanted to create. His sensibility and awareness to social matters became a big asset for his works and via style and trends of the fashion, he was keenly engaged to speak for the underdog through his photographs. He won two awards during this short time, one by Life Magazine and the other with ELLE.
This comment from Suzy Menkes sums it nicely in 1992 at Monaco’s Grand Prix of Flesh and Fashion, in the presence of Peter Lindbergh and Helmut Newton, “Hannes Schmid of Switzerland made an impassioned plea for photographers to reflect social and political issues. He showed fashion with portraits of American Indian life.”
His most commercially-prominent engagement had been with Leo Burnett, with the task of re-creating the Marlboro Man. For 10 years until 2002, he was a Marlboro photographer. And in this time, he found his camera seeking the most personal, yet boldest expressions of an icon, a myth that still exists through decades, in the most extensive prairies in America. These photographs became a powerful reminder of a myth, a longing that has perpetuated through the glories of masculine pride.
In his own private time, Schmid continues to create photo-essays of social relevance and for various charitable organisations. His stories are almost endless, from documenting stone-miners in Bolivia, to the ceased-to-exist street opera in Singapore to the holiest festival, Maha Kumbh Mela in India, the gold-mining in the deep jungles of Borneo etc. Nearer to home, his visual stories for Pro Infirmis won him a medal at the Art Director’s club.
Today, Schmid is running an NGO out of Cambodia, with the aim of helping people out of poverty through sustainable help. In his 70s now, he is back to where the roots of his passion is, concerned photography; a term, coined by Robert Capa, who co-founded the Magnum Photos in Paris. Schmid is drawn to documenting and capturing life and people moments and the stories which are so crucial, yet so intimate to the understanding of social parallels in our global village.
photo©Christian Lanz