Bettina Rheims is an iconic French photographer known for her sensual portraits of women, who range from movie stars, models and musicians to androgynous teens, wives of Russian millionaires and Parisian women whom she finds while "hunting" on the streets. Her subjects are often shot in various states of (un)dress, their portrayal filtered through her fantastic visions.
It is powerful imagery that has often made Rheim's work the subject of controversy — her book "I.N.R.I.," a collaboration with writer and essayist Serge Bramly, which uses models to portray the life of Jesus Christ in a contemporary context, was met with much uproar by the French extreme right.
Her exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Arts, "Made in Paradise," features much of her most acclaimed photographs of women — from celebrities to the anonymous — all of which display a sense of vulnerability yet powerful glory.