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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 10, 1983)
Snaps jazzman by Byron Laursen AL JARREAU He has a type of personality endowed with such a charm as he could turn a work into a merry party before men yet aware of." Iakenobu Iyaraihi. inurnalisl on Norman SeeH It ,rF 1 i housands of other photogra phers have technical ability greater than mine, asserts Norman Secff, the blond South At rlcan ex doctor who has complied one of the most fame-laden client lists in existence Ninety percent of the students who come here have more technical expertise than I do To Seeff it s the photo session the human interaction that qual dies as .irt The rest is mere picture-taking Typically, a session with Seed involves hours ot heh.iv ior that could pass lor partying Subjects sing, dance drink laugh at themselves Seed watches, encour age. what he likes photographs what he likes best all the while aiming for .1 core ol spontaneity that emerges when personality de fenses are (nit aside Assistants hand him loaded cameras on de mand and then develop and print the expended <■> mm film to Seed specifications One writer to Seed's displeasure, called his images of stars in moments of candor the naked self under bulletproof glass Shooting for the cover of prop \iUi vocalist Al larreau s newest IP (at |>ress time, final image choices were not yet madei Seeff assem bled himself, his subject his tour ye,ir-old daughter and a small army of assistants The studio, a vaguely derelict building on Sunset Strip has a beautifully functional north end A skylight opens to north light ana a loft opposite it permits par tial overhead angles larreau began singing almost as soon as he ar rived This man is so magical and self-confident Seeff said afterward I d say this was among the top ten percent of all the sessions I've ever done You know the notion that creative people are all neurotic isn t true The greater the artist, the more open and inspired the person is about everything But everyone has an inner creative quality Stars are lust people who have learned to protect it publicly Midway through the session Seeff s daughter fills a lull by rush ing up to the singer and nuzzling him as if they were both puppies larreau lifts her up, entranced, while a pleased father keeps snapping images Norman Seeff grew up in lohan nesburg, South Africa. His father, a doctor and a fine artist, assumed the son would ultimately hew to the medical profession as well Norman did indeed study and prac tice medicine, but his happiest moments came in off-duty hours He would plunge directly from doc toring into the life of a bohemian painter in the lohannesburg equiva lent of Greenwich Village. Came the dawn and he was a doctor again In 1968 he ran afoul of the South African government's racial segre gation policies and left the country in vital haste. Eventually he landed in New York, unable to practice medicine because of licensing re quirements He had a 35 mm single lens-reflex camera, an old Nikon Persistent work won him magazine assignments. He shot lames Taylor for Harper's Bazaar. and a photo from that session was chosen for the cover of a lames Taylor Song Book. Increasing specialization in musical subjects took him to Los Angeles, first to be an art director for a record company, then to free lance A 1974 book. Hot Shots, collected many of Seeff s best images to date Without doubt the most commented-on example among them is the shot of Carly Simon on the cover of her Playing Possum LP. probably the best sales booster of her career The diversity of disciplines and fads he sampled, searching for ways to better open up creative com munication. spanned yoga and Hindu Scripture Life chose Seeff for a portfolio of emergent musical stars of 1979 Blondie. tne Police loe lackson. Brian Eno, and the Talking Heads were among them More recently he has photographed tne Pointer Sisters and President Ronald Reagan I had a lovely session with him," Seeff says. Of course, I'm totally at odds with his policies, if we had talked about politics, there wouldn t have been any communi cation at all Nevertheless, it isn't easy to imagine the president going through what Seeff calls ' stages of getting more and more inspired lcontinued on page 14)
