Celebrities are typically presented on a pedestal constructed by glossy magazine pages and elaborate photo shoots. But when W Magazine hired German photographer Juergen Teller, known for his down-to-earth celebrity photos, and then promoted the images online, the internet reacted—badly.

W Magazine recently had Teller capture several celebrities for the publication’s “Best Performances” issue, but as the magazine shared those images, followers responded by wondering if they actually paid someone to take those photos. Some even called for everyone involved to be fired.

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The photographer, who is based in London, is known for his unusual style that encompasses both celebrity portraits that look like ’90s candid childhood photos to fine-art images that border on the bizarre.

Whether he is photographing commercial work or celebrities, Teller always seems to turn the usual expectations and rules upside down. In one interview, Teller said that there are no rules for portraits. “The only thing that’s important, is that you capture the person as good as you think possible, that you get into their psyche—who the person is themselves,” he told System Magazine. “Sometimes it takes a long time, sometimes it is rather quick. You have to quickly understand their gestures—how they drink their coffee or hold their hands.”

That’s likely the approach Teller took in the shoot for W Magazine, done in non-picturesque locations like random sidewalks and along parked cars. One of the celebrities, Riz Ahmed, said that his shoot only took 20 seconds. Most of the shoots lacked elaborate lighting, props were folding chairs and whatever else was on the side of the sidewalk. In one photo, the background has discarded litter.

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Non-photographers quickly glanced at the images and thought, I could shoot that. A round of memes are circulating on that very premise. But, much like the idea that anyone can splatter paint but only Jackson Pollack can paint a Jackson Pollack painting, those who understand Teller’s work realize the lack of glamour is not just intentional but essential to the image.

In her article for the New Yorker, Naomi Fry says Teller’s work has the realism of a photo that a close friend captured. “Teller’s pictures have always had a seductiveness that emerges not in spite of but because of their playful, slightly off immediacy,” Fry writes. “The images have a glamour that relies on a certain level of deglamorization.” (For the record, the editors at Rangefinder are fans of Teller’s work.)

Others blame the internet for the inability to “get” Teller’s style. Max Grobe, writing for Highsnobiety, says “[i]f you don’t get Juergen Teller’s shoot, maybe Instagram rotted your brain.”

Whether or not you admire Teller’s work (or, like me, are simply jealous of his ability to read a person and shoot a portrait in 20 seconds), his unusual images are generating a social media buzz that’s likely much more exposure than the typical glossed-to-perfection celebrity photograph. If the point is generating conversation, Teller certainly nailed it.