Berlin based Anke Linz and Andreas Oettinger are a couple who have teamed up to become the photographic entity Billy und Hells.
Working as a team obviously has its benefits because they have produced some intensely beautiful portraits that have really caught my eye over the past few years.
Like all master practitioners’ they cite the influence of some greats of the past, notably Helmet Newton and Irving Penn
Personally, the otherworldly quality of their work puts me more in mind of Loretta Lux.
Like her, their pictures have the feeling of old paintings as much as photographs.
There is also a very retro, early color, 1940’s feel about some of the work, an effect brought about by muting color or conversely making it very saturated and intense
There’s never an attempt to be boringly ‘real’.
Instead we are left with images that are artful creations from a better world than the drab one we live in.
