Mist settles over a hillside at twilight in Vincent Dixon’s recent campaign for cosmetics company Le Petit Olivier. But closer inspection reveals the landscape to be a woman’s body close up, the curves of her belly and hips standing in for bluffs and hillocks. Made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the French brand, the images depict lakes and mountains lit by sunrise, starlight and sun through clouds, all in a soft palette of mauves, grays and blues. Titled “Respectons La Beaute” (“Respect Beauty”), the campaign, from agency Leo Burnett, was intended to highlight the brand’s connection to nature and suggest the purity of the raw materials in its products; creative director Xavier Beauregard and art directors Laurent Bodson and Eric Landowski worked with Dixon and retouchers Feel Good to produce 20 images to use in print and outdoor ads and in stores, as well as a 50 second TV spot.

The images were also exhibited at Nikki Diana Marquardt Gallery in Paris and collected in a book. Writes Dixon in a blog post, “The concept was for a series of nudes that initially appear like landscapes. From the beginning, everyone involved wanted this campaign to be a fine art series. We were given considerable creative freedom and approached every step of the project with this in mind.” Seeing the work in the book and show, he writes, “One of the things I love about being a photographer is that it is as much of a thrill for me today to my see my images in print as it was when I first started.”

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