John Madere Photography

Milton Glaser’s famous posters personify his long and successful career to me.  Milton liked my idea of using them as a backdrop and allowed me to select a dozen of my favorite online at  Milton Glaser Works.

On the shoot day my two assistants and I assembled the posters on two foamcore flats then joined them to form a V shaped background.  We set that up along with some fairly complex lighting in the lobby of his east 32nd street studio in Manhattan with employees, clients, and messengers stepping over and around our mini-production.

With everything ready, I asked Milton to come down and we started our 45 minute long session where I discovered that he was not afraid to try some inventive and dramatic poses.

Next Post: Stephen Doyle on Monday, August 2

Someone with this much talent and recognition might be expected to be difficult and even egotistical subjects. Instead, I found Massimo and Lella Vignelli to be some of the wisest, warmest and most charming creative people that I’ve ever photographed.

Their upper east side design studio was beautifully and minimally designed, softly lit by a fifteen foot high wall of windows. I also photographed them together and separately in front of an enormous tapestry by Roy Lichenstein and a bust of Massimo’s favorite literary figure, Goethe.

During our session, Massimo was fascinated by the design of my camera. In a matter of minutes, he effortlessly sketched the evolution of modern cameras.

A few months after our still shoot Massimo consented to my request to do a short film documentary on him.  That footage turned out very well. Massimo’s perspective on the world of graphic design is fascinating. You’ll also see a beta version of his upcoming iPad and iPhone app with an new, updated version of Massimo’s 1972 NYC Subway map. The film highlights the opening, in September, of The Vignelli Center for Design Studies. I recently did a little more filming with Massimo, Lella, and Beatriz Cifuentes, a talented designer who works with the Vignellis, to complete the documentary. This seven minute film — which I plan to have online by late August — will be my first serious, albeit brief, effort at filmmaking.

photo: Kyle Dorosz

Behind the scenes on my mini – documentary shoot from last Thursday.

photo: Beatriz Cifuentes

Seymour Chwast in his studio in Greenwich Village. The ground-floor apartment is full of intriguing little objets and many, many books. As it happened, our session coincided with the publication of his book Seymour. I wanted to photograph him with his iconic pipe, but Seymour, having quit smoking some years ago, was reluctant to light up again for the sake of my art.

Paula’s map paintings show at Maya Stendhal Gallery left a lasting impression on me during one of my regular gallery tours in Chelsea. Months later, after starting this portrait series, her fine art work came to mind as the personification of her wide ranging talents. I photographed her with the only available prop, a simple bench, to work on less conventional poses. For the background, I chose my personal favorite piece, “Tsunami,” depicting the devastation caused by the 2004 earthquake in Indonesia.

I remember thinking that, if she liked her portrait, I might be able to photograph her husband, Seymour Chwast, next…

I’ve photographed a number of authors for book covers and always enjoyed meeting the kind of people whose stories were interesting enough to fill a best seller. Chip Kidd and I had never collaborated on a project but I’ve long known of his reputation as the world’s foremost book jacket designer.

This portrait, taken in his upper East Side apartment, was shot in front of the most fascinating bookcase I’ve ever seen, containing hundreds of books whose covers he designed. Even so, the bookcase had some competition, as his apartment also includes a helicopter seat,  many 50s household objects, and one of the world’s best collections of Batman memorabilia.

Helicopter Seat: Not the best place to relax with a good book. Chip with a copy of  The Learners, one of two successful novels that he’s written. This fall, Knopf Doubleday is publishing a new book by Chip Kidd and Lisa Birnbach called True Prep.

Why, as a photographer, would I want to spend my time blogging?  The short answer is, I have some thoughts, beyond keywords and metadata, that I’d like to share with other creative people.  Also, a few of my photographer friends love to express themselves as musicians and, so far, no one I know wants to hear me play that didgeridoo that I bought last month.  And, finally, I didn’t want to be the last person on earth to have a blog.

I’ll begin with some insights into my most recent project – portraits of eleven of the most respected designers in the U.S. This blog will have stories and background photos about the portrait sessions.  I’ll be posting more about them over the next few days.  Later, you’ll find other topics that should be of interest to anyone in the visual arts.

After spending almost a year trying to coordinate April’s busy schedule with my shoots in LA, I decided  that I’d have to fly out West specifically to photograph her for the series.Because her design work is often associated with extremely imaginative and complex digital imagery I was leaning toward some sort of surrealistic background treatment for her portrait. In the end, I decided to photograph her at her design consultancy, Made in Space.

A couple hundred frames into our shoot, April’s enthusiasm wanes and she begins to fantasize about Miracle Manor.

April and architect Michael Rotondi own a beautiful, quirky spa called Miracle Manor Retreat located just outside Joshua Tree National Park, a couple of hours east of LA. The spa, of course, had to be thoroughly scouted as a possible location and I spent a very enjoyable day there and at Joshua Tree.

Above are Miracle Manor’s two thermal pools, one at body temperature, the other, enclosed, hot mineral water at 105 degrees F.

Typical retreat room at the Manor w/custom designed furniture, Indian and organic cotton textiles, Latvian stool and some other kinky chatchkis. April’s aesthetic and obsessive attention to detail permeates every inch of the manor.

The Buddha fountain out by the mineral water swimming pool

Scouting Photos at Made in Space

Greiman’s collection of masks, children’s chairs, virgin statuettes, and memorabilia and then some.

Above, the Virgins referred to earlier

A selection of the masks collection

Dayglo surfboard table designed by April, which, btw, is for sale.

April generously captioned this: THE FOTOGRAPHER BEING VAIN AT MADE IN SPACE STUDIO. I just wanted her to tell me what she was going to do with that fun-house mirror. She still has time for a proper reply.

April’s own vanity, creatively (and shockingly) exploited.  Her revolutionary nude, digitized self-portrait, first seen in Design Quarterly 133.

Scouting shots from Joshua Tree and the LA skyline from the Griffith Observatory – all of which  I initially considered for April’s portrait background.

It’s amazing that it looks intimate with the photographer on the east side of town and the subject on the west. — Michael Bierut

One day last winter I went out to photograph the streets of Manhattan, freshly covered with a thick blanket of snow. Instead, I accidentally spotted the perfect setting for my upcoming portrait of Michael Bierut as I walked past Pentagram’s Fifth Avenue building glowing warmly in the blue light of dusk.

Pentagram has been a very familiar place for me since the 1980’s. I’ve shot for a number of their designers in the United States and overseas and had the honor of collaborating on some of my favorite projects with Peter Harrison, Woody Pirtle, Michael Gericke, David Hillman, and Michael Bierut.

Having Michael stand in Pentagram’s window above his firm’s renowned name seemed like the perfect setting for his portrait. He agreed to the concept perhaps because he liked the fact that he only had to step away from his desk for a few minutes.

The best viewpoint required that I shoot from a twelve foot ladder on Fifth Avenue at rush hour, across the street from Pentagram.  I unsuccessfully attempted to get a permission from the city of New York and then just decided to wing it, hoping that any passing police would assume that I must have a permit.  To decrease my chances of getting run over by a bus, I persuaded a NYC garbage truck driver to park on Fifth Avenue in just the right spot to protect me and my ladder from traffic.

My assistants and I set up one light for Michael inside Pentagram’s window.  We clamped a tripod head to the top of the ladder and began doing test shots as the sun set.  Just as it started to get dark enough to have the indoor lighting balance against the twilight, I asked Michael to step in.  One of my assistants stayed indoors with Michael and relayed my directions by cell phone.  We were both using our iPhones on the AT&T network and, miraculously, our calls only dropped a few times during that critical period.

The scene, with our huge strobe going off in the window and me obstructing traffic on Fifth Avenue, did catch the attention of more than a few passersby. One of them stopped to take it all in and then asked my assistants, “Isn’t that Michael Bierut?”.

Stefan was the first subject for my designer series.  Deitch Projects, a prominent SOHO art gallery, was featuring an exhibition of his work that was concurrently being published in his book, “Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far“.  The work was fascinating and often very funny with a unique perspective that is indicative of Stefan’s endless curiosity.  I knew that he’d be an excellent portrait subject from seeing him give his engaging TED Talks.

Here are a few of the other situations that I photographed that afternoon:

“Everybody Always Thinks They Are Right”.  Stefan with his thirty-three foot tall angry monkey.  Previously, six of these monkeys were exhibited outdoors in cities in Scotland.  They were illustrated by Monika Aichele in Germany, built by Sportogo in California.  Another huge monkey, perched on Dietch Project’s rooftop would have made an even more interesting backdrop but the the ten below zero wind chill factor that January day made this setting an easy choice.  The wall on the left had 7200 very ripe and pungent bananas glued to it.   Days before this photo was taken, his arrangement of both ripe and green bananas spelled out the message:  Self Confidence Produces Fine Results.