Newton was probably most famous for his black and white female nudes series.

Helmut Neustädter was born in Berlin in 1920 to a wealthy German-Jewish button factory owner and an American Mother. Newton got his first camera at the age of twelve and worked for the German photographer Yva.

He and his family were forced to flee Germany because of the Nazis, however whilst his parents headed for Chile, he boarded a boat to China. Newton eventually ended up in Australia and was obligated to help with the war effort, after which he because an Australia citizen and it was at this time that he legally changed his last name to 'Newton'.

“He opened a small photo studio in Melbourne, and soon began contributing fashion photos to French Vogue in 1961, a magazine that he made his own for a quarter century.

Over the years, Newton also contributed to magazines such as Playboy, Queen, Nova, Marie-Claire, Elle, and the American, Italian and German editions of Vogue -- his stark and provocative style setting a new industry standard.

His studies of nude women became his signature and the self-obsessed and often distant poses of the models frequent caused polemic in the art-world. He won the sobriquets "King of Kink" and Prince of Porn" in the 1970s after the publication of his erotic photo book "White Women."

Source: http://www.leninimports.com/helmut_newton.html

 

Newton shoots primarily in black and white however occasionally he will shoot in colour:

“I used to hate doing color. I hated transparency film. The way I did color was by not wanting to know what kind of film was in my camera. What the hell's the difference? Then I started using negative film and came to like color a lot. Sometimes I shoot the same image in black-and-white and color. Sometimes I exhibit them side by side. It can be interesting.”

Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3992/is_200209/ai_n9111834/pg_3/?tag=content;col1

The photograph I have chosen is my favourite Newton shot. He also did a more famous version with a female nude model also in the frame however I think that version loses the sense of isolated contemplation that this one achieves so very well.

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