Bruno Bisang: the Polaroid-loving fashion photographer Growing up on the shores of Lake Maggiore in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, Bruno Bisang fell in love with film. His hometown of Ascona was just a few minutes" walk across the Bartolomeo Varenna bridge from Locarno, where the renowned film festival had crackled into being after the war. At the time, the organisers made a point of showing the work of four emerging directors of Italian Neorealism: Visconti, Antonioni, Rossellini and Fellini. "I was only 10 years old - too young to see the movies," says Bisang, "but I could stare at the posters outside to my heart's content. I felt so attracted to them: the style, the women. I knew I had to do something that would take me in this direction. As soon as he was able, he enrolled in art school, and learnt the technical side of taking pictures in a local studio, and "slowly, slowly, I found my way." Today his work is a familiar sight on the pages of Vogue, Cosmopolitan and GQ. Bisang, 50, counts Chanel and Cacharel, Givenchy and Guerlain as clients. He divides his time - "a little bit back and forth" - between apartments in Zurich and Paris, but this year alone work has taken him to Italy and India, the Caribbean, South Africa, Germany, Asia, South America, Miami and New York. Halfway through our telephone conversation his other line rings: "I'm on the phone - interview with London - ciao-ciao!" Although he doesn't keep a studio - "what would be the point?" - a whole room of his Zurich pied-à-terre is given over to storing the prized Polaroids he has kept from each and every shoot since his first commercial assignment 30 years ago, of which a vivid cross-section is shortly to be shown at London's Little Black Gallery. Bisang's Polaroids attest to the calibre of stars he has worked with through the decades - Naomi Campbell, Monica Bellucci, Carla Bruni, Claudia Schiffer. I've shot many beautiful women over the years - so many. I always was lucky. He insists there have been no tantrums: "Even Naomi, everybody complains about Naomi but I worked with her three or four times, and I never had any problems. She was only half an hour late for me - I hear it can be three hours! He puts his success down to the way he treats his models. A model is not an object. For me she is a partner. For a good shoot, you must treat the model with respect. I'm quite a relaxed guy and I don't do all that screaming like some photographers do. But I want her to give everything to me in return. It's a collaboration. Polaroids have long been part of a photographer's arsenal, an instant means of testing lighting, composition, expression and so on, before he or she launches into the shoot proper. They aren't designed to last, but for Bisang, this is part of their appeal. Each Polaroid goes from hand to hand, from model, to stylist, to assistant and those traces - fingerprints, scratches, annotations - these are signs of life to me. It adds a depth that you really lose with digital. Even now I enjoy the anticipation, that magic moment when you peel away the print and see the image you have created. Showing someone the screen on the back of the camera just isn't the same. "30 Years of Polaroids" is at the Little Black Gallery, London SW10, Jan 15 until Feb 9; thelittleblackgallery.com Follow Seven magazine on Twitter @TelegraphSeven