An artist’s atelier (that’s the French word for studio) is a place of creativity and expression, with no one being the same. It is a sacred place to an artist, and one most people are not privy to, but when we do get a chance to peek behind that curtain, it provides an insight into their creative practice, and in turn who they are as an artist. 

Belgium photographer Stephan Vanfleteren does just this in his new book Atelier. It presents 12 years of photography all taken in his photography home studio. A mixture of natural and artificial lighting has helped capture photography that resembles a combination of paintings by Dutch master painters and contemporary photography. The book is a masterclass in natural and artificial lighting, as he captures a wide range of subjects for personal and commercial projects. 

• See our guide for more information on the best photography lighting kit

Not tied down to one particular genre of photography, Atelier’s range of subjects include portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, and documentary – all captured with the same respected treatment and with Vanfleteren’s characteristic style. Much like Irving Penn’s masterful series Small Trades or Richard Avedon’s In the American West, Vanfleteren keeps the backdrop in his studio consistent, with only the subject as the variable. Keeping the same curtained background throughout allows the subject to become the message, highlighting greater importance and demanding more observation of it. ‘Vanfleteren connects to the traditions of old and contemporary masters but remains faithful to his characteristic style.’ 

Vanfleteren’s studio is at his home and enables him to capture both natural sunlit and artificially lit images in the same space. Throughout the book, there is a mixture of lighting techniques, but the style remains the same, often making the source of light undeterminable. Still lifes feature more in this book than any other that Vanfleteren has produced, including work from his new series Nature Morte, currently on exhibition at Galerie Rabouan Moussion in Paris (until December 31, 2023). 

I have been a huge fan of Vanfleteren for many years, collecting his previous publications Surf Tribe and Flandrien, and studying them as a source of photographic education. His portraiture is gripping, connecting the viewer to the subject with unwavering grace, much like statues frozen in time.  

Along with the beautiful images in Atelier, there are texts written by Dutch poet and novelist Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, and by Stephan Vanfleteren himself. The words offer further insight into Vanfleteren’s process, and how he came to create his home atelier. 

Available in several language editions, Atelier by Stephan Vanfleteren is published by Hannibal Books and is available now at the price of €70 (that converts to around $75 / £60). This photography book would make the perfect gift for any portrait photographer.  

You may also be interested in our guides on the best coffee table books, the best photography lighting kit, and the best camera for portraits. 

The New York photographer Elliott Erwitt, who died on 29 November aged 95, was once asked how he got dogs to jump for his pictures. The trick, he suggested, was to speak their language. Bark at a dog, he said, and “sometimes they bark back, sometimes they jump”. Erwitt was a member of the Magnum agency for 70 years and worked on assignments around the world, taking pictures of politicians (famously of Richard Nixon poking Nikita Khrushchev in the chest in 1959) and of celebrities (Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Jack Kerouac); even so, it was his comic affinity for canine subjects for which he was best loved.

The predeliction came as something of a surprise to him. “Most of the time,” he wrote in 1998, “when I am out of the house I carry a small unobtrusive camera and I snap away obsessively at things that interest me… I never set out to take dog pictures but somehow dogs appeared in large numbers on my contact sheets… Obviously, my sympathy for the creatures was deeper than I had imagined.” Those words came in the introduction to his third book of dog photographs, DogDogs (others included Son of Bitch and Woof). He liked the fact that “dogs made easy, uncomplaining targets without the self-conscious hang-ups and objections of humans caught on film”.

A tall man, Erwitt would make certain to get down to the pavement level to get his portraits, his subject’s domain: “I decided to photograph from a dog’s point of view because dogs see more shoes than anybody,” he said. He doubted that any other animal had a dog’s capacity for heart or loyalty. “Some people,” he pointed out, “say elephants come close – but they do not roam the streets in every town and country like dogs do.”