Authentic Black and White

Martin Muntenbruch is a beauty and fashion photographer with an outstanding personal approach. Why does he prefer our Ilford Delta Pro photographic materials for his editorial and advertising assignments?

Martin Muntenbruch: "Because your film is the best for my style. For example, when I took this picture of Julie Bernstein, courtesy of Ford Models Europe in Paris, I used the Ilford 100 Delta Pro 135 mm film. The resolution and the edginess in the line structures are extremely sharp, although we were shooting on location on the Père Lachaise cemetery and it was actually raining.

Thanks to the Delta Pro film, I was able to push the technology in my lab to the ultimate limit. You guys have come up with an authentic black and white film material that is extremely well tailored for black and white buffs like me. I guess every photographer who wants to go the last mile, beyond simply taking good pictures, will love this new film."

Martin Muntenbruch is a former art director and graphic designer who has worked for FCB, an international ad agency in Berlin, and the German edition of Harper's Bazaar in Munich. He later assisted Jochen Harder, a renowned fashion and beauty photographer in Germany.

Combining his experience in graphic design and photography, he finally set up his own business creating pictures for such clients as Grundig and Clinique, shooting for Hachette Filipacchi and Hachette Rizzoli in France and Greece, and exposing his pictures across Europe. Today Martin Muntenbruch lives in the French capital.

It all began when Martin was a child. He literally experienced a shock of images in the United States, where he spent his youth. Giant billboards and larger than life advertising messages were thrust in his face, day and night. The fantastic backdrop of forms and figures appeared to him in strange harmony with the city.

When Martin returned to Bavaria, he chose painting to translate his impressions from the other side of the Atlantic. An array of surrealistic canvases was born, perfectly composed, simple and pure.

Martin's vision was to suck the viewer into a psychedelic universe where personalities reveal their second face beyond the real. He wanted to make this universe believable and convincing, so he switched to photography, because he felt it had a more slick and tactile surface. Using a camera became for him the ultimate medium to imagine an attitude, to show the women he loves, and to achieve in his pictures the magic touch of intimacy.

"In the beginning, I thought of using my photographs as material to integrate into my paintings: to cut them up and paste them into my images, or even paint over them," Martin explains. "However, I soon realized that black and white photography, in itself, if properly treated in the darkroom, would give me the whole range of expressive tools that I needed."

Whether it be color or black and white, what Martin Muntenbruch really prefers is to be creative. That's vital for him. Arresting pictures with stellar lighting are the result. Martin's women are timeless manifestations, who live their crazy eccentricity with no restraint.