Christine Spengler

Her black-and-white photographs have appeared in major news media, including Paris-Match, Time, Newsweek, El País, The New York Times, and Le Monde. In fashion photography, she photographed the Christian Dior winter 2018/2019 ready-to-wear Collection.

• Birthplace — Alsace, France • Years Active — 1970 – present

Born in Alsace, France, Spengler moved to Madrid, Spain, at the age of seven after her parents' divorce. Living with her aunt and uncle, she studied French and Spanish literature with the intention to become a writer.

At the age of 23, Spengler and her younger brother Eric left Madrid. While travelling through Chad during the Toubou Wars, Spengler borrowed her brother's camera and photographed soldiers headed into battle. For taking the picture, Spengler and her brother were arrested and held for 23 days in prison on speculation they were spies or journalists. Despite the arrest, Spengler continued to focus on war photography, specifically on the adapted daily life of women and children in cities targeted by bombs and the consequences that followed after war.

Spengler then began to work for The Nylon magazine, photographing war and protests in Northern Ireland. Spengler photographed children and other civilians of the war. She would immerse herself in the culture, as she put on a veil in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, to capture intimate shots of her subjects.

Later, Spengler worked with Sipa Press on an assignment in Bangladesh to photograph a Pakistan leader returning home after nine years as a captive. As she befriended the leader's wife, she was invited to a private gathering, unopened to the press. Life magazine signed a contract with her on the spot, where they published many of her works.

After working with Life, she worked with Associated Press during the Vietnam War where she photographed the front lines. She stayed several months in Vietnam before receiving news of her brother Eric's suicide. She went on to document many other wars, from a civilian's perspective, gaining worldwide attention for a perspective few war photographers take. Commenting on her shooting images of women in Iran during the 1979 Islamic revolution, she said "I had access to a whole world of women, to which no man could have access."

Spengler once worked for the fashion world, when Maria Grazia Chuiri, Dior's first female creative director, asked her to shoot the backstage images for the fashion brand's AW18 collection. For this, Spengler recreated the 1968 student protests with models marching like an army. Further, she published photographs from Spain in the photo book Vierges et toreros (lit. Virgins and Toreros) and another one on the Spanish islands Ibiza and Formentera. In 2017, her book of images from the former French colony Indochina was published along with writings by Marguerite Duras.