There's a Story Behind Every Mark Seliger Photograph
Click, click, snap.
In today's See it Now, Get it Now, Do it Now world, it seems that anyone can just pick up a camera and become a photogrpaher. However, only a select few have been able to take the act of image-capturing and turn it into an artform. Mark Seliger, 59, is one of them.
Hailing from Amarillo, TX, his trip down the photography rabbit hole began when he was only 13, after taking up a beginner's course at the Jewish Community Center in Houston, nine hours away from his hometown. "I took enough pictures to be able to go into the darkroom, but that was not the incentive. To me it all [came] down to a beautiful print." Evidently, Seliger was wise been beyond his years.
His love affair with the medium wouldn't stop there, but rather grow stronger when he attended East Texas State University. It was during this time that he would carve his own path, connecting best to documentary portraiture. "That was really my kickoff. I started to assemble what I would eventually do and focus on: [It] was about isolating an environment, working with all sides of the image, and then photographing people [while] building that kind of rapport with him was essential to portraiture.
"I started to explore more conceptual photography and more ideas—one was more about kind of technique and just all the arithmetic that goes into photography, and then the next level was really taking it to [the] ideas." This professional catharsis would become crucial to making his next move; Seliger relocated to New York City in 1984. And like many that came before him, once he arrived on the island of Manhattan, he never left. Since then he's garnered a decade-spanning career, having photographed some of the world's most notable people in music, film, TV, fashion, and politics—Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Like many a great photographer, Seliger has also photographed legends who are no longer with us: Bowie, Cobain, and others, howver, they remai immortal in each photograph, if not for their respective accomplishments—which brings with it a mixed feeling. "There’s obviously a sadness to that, but there's also the gift of being able to have shared that moment with them," he stated. "That to me is always the sort of satisfying experience."
His work can be seen in magazines, books, and now, in a new exhibition at A.galerie in Paris, France, where viewers can observe Seliger's talent on glorious display. Titled XXX 30 Years of Portraits, the exhibition serves as an anthology of greats spanning from past to present, each with its own energy and story, and is not to be missed.
Of course, every photograph has its own story, and thankfully, Seliger loves to share.
David Bowie
“I only photographed Bowie twice, and one of them was in my stairwell—that was actually connected to an assignment that I was doing with MTV. Then the next time I photographed him was actually for an Audi ad, and we were in this little diner. I took him aside from us shooting the ad and said, Hey, let me just take a couple of pictures of you. David, obviously—with the influence he's had in fashion and in music and in pop culture—exceeds everybody else.
"When you're photographing David Bowie, it's like, Oh, okay. I'd better get my shit together. He was super lovely, very communicative, he was very collaborative as an artist because he wanted to know what your thoughts were. He wanted to kind of take what you had to say and what his interpretation and spin it [into] a collaboration of both his and your ideas. That was a really nice thing to share. "
Gisele
"That was in the stairwell series, which was a personal project. I started to find this one little spot in my studio that presented itself when we dismantled an elevator shaft. Once we took [it] out, we built a staircase to go up in order to be able to measure the coding for building permits. It was a very photogenic area, and so every time that I had somebody come over for a session, I would ask if they'd run up and take a picture in the stairwell really quick. We never spent that much time doing it, but I built a nice library of images of people. That was the thread—that everybody in that project was photographed in this space. [It] became almost like a little theater, and so, Gisele, that was for a cover for Rolling Stone. That picture we shot as really an ancillary photograph, and really—I hadn't tied together what I was doing with the stairwell—but it was like, Okay, let me just keep on shooting people in there. It was a nice little destination."
Nicole Kidman
“That was shot in England. We were doing a story on her, and I think we took a little lunch break. When we all regrouped after, we were walking around, taking pictures, and she said, "Oh, will you go grab me a bottle of wine?" That was the moment. So that was [it]. I have a couple different paint brushes I’ve used, and that one was very spontaneous, pin tacks, handheld, very loosey-goosey type of experience with her, and I had no idea what would work and what wouldn’t."
“It was just totally spontaneous. [It happens] less now, but in the golden age of magazines, when people were really interested in pushing the limits of visual uniqueness, I think people really took a lot of chances and kind of went to town and did other things besides just [shooting in] a studio. And Nicole's amazing. She's obviously great to look at and great to work She comes with her A-game.
Bob Dylan
"I was told that Bob would arrive at [the] studio at a certain time, [that] he’s very collaborative and [doesn't] shake hands, but the first thing he did was he got off the elevator and he shook my hand. So I was like, "Okay." And now he's just outside—that was in my old studio and that was just right outside the fire escape. He came by himself; he had a couple of clothes that he brought a suit, a cane, and a couple of other things. He just kind of did his thing. It was a very memorable, amazing experience to be able to work with him."
Beyoncé and Jay-Z
"I was working with Jay-Z on his clothing line, Rocawear. We were in South Africa [and] they were on their way to the concert, so I just jumped in the back of the limo with them and shot a couple of pictures. They weren't even married yet, but they were obviously together in a very big way, and spending time together."
"They were always superstars. That they've done it together is just obviously the quintessential relationship you want to have with your partner. I feel like they've obviously taken all of their energies and kind of combined them in different ways to really share the creative experience together. In a world where everything is so instantaneous, to have that kind of longevity is pretty rare. It's like, we're not looking for the next big thing with them. We know that they're always going to deliver."
XXX 30 Years of Portraits is on view at A.galerie in Paris, France, now through November 3.
