“Photographing things the same way and then building a platform … invites people to compare, that enables the viewer to look at eyes in a different way.”

—Martin Schoeller

Martin Schoeller is known for his distinctive, close-up portraits. He says that this style of portraiture makes it all about the person and removes unnecessary distractions such as clothes, environment, or background. Though his concept of portraiture is simple, he has taken complex and intimate photographs of people from around the world. Schoeller’s portraits of the Hadza people in Tanzania and of numerous sets of twins have appeared in National Geographic magazine. Schoeller was an assistant to photographer Annie Leibovitz and worked alongside Richard Avedon at the New Yorker.—Caitlin Kleiboer, University of