Michael Jackson: Before He Was King

Exhibition and Book Signing Dec. 22

2009-11-30T14:50:00.000-08:00

I will show a select group of images from his work with Michael Jackson thirty years ago at Steven Turner Contemporary in Los Angeles. The images appear in his new book Michael Jackson Before He Was King published by Chronicle Books. I will also be available to sign books. This will be the first time this portfolio of work is on exhibition. Take a look.
Steven Turner Contemporary, 6026 Wilshire Blvd.,Los Angeles. December 22, 7 - 10PM.

Photos And Book Excerpts on VANITY FAIR

2009-11-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

Vanity Fair Magazine online published photos and excerpts from my book!

Part 9: Making of the Book

2009-09-07T08:12:00.002-07:00

My photo editor, Jessica Hundley, had just finished editing images and text (1000 pages) with Dennis Hopper for Taschen Publishing. She went from Dennis Hopper to Michael Jackson. I told her I wanted the photo selection to appeal to both fans and lovers of photography. I am an artist making a book of my photographs on the man with the highest profile in popular culture. Our edit selections were sometimes testy. Jessica and my assistant photo editor Taye Hansberry, on occasion clashed with some of the images I choose characterizing them as, how should I put this...boring and uninteresting. They'd acknowledge the aesthetic and technical points of the image and counter that it lacked heart or passion. On the flip side, they'd show me some photos that I did not like at all -- too sentimental, technically inferior or just plain cute. Then my wife, also an artist, would jump in the fray and add her favs. Lesson learned: Men ARE from Mars. And women are definitely not.

Part 8: Making of the Book

2009-09-07T08:12:00.001-07:00

I signed a publishing contract with Chronicle Books, one of favorite publishing outfits. I'd been working on this book for a year, talking with Chronicle since May, weeks before Michael passed, and now they've told me I have two choices. The first choice is to go the traditional route and take 9-12 months to publish the book, maybe even wait a year after that because book stores will be flooded with MJ. The seconds is to fast track the book and give casual readers a high quality choice when looking for a MJ book. We knew fans and readers who appreciate good design and photography would eventually find my book, this year, or the next. In the end we decided on the second option, offering the casual reader, whose interest is fueled by popular culture, a heartfelt and substantive book. My editor at Chronicle told me I had to finish the book and get it to the printers in six weeks. A nine month process reduced to six weeks. The speediest production schedule in the history of my publisher. Some people at the company were skeptical that I could complete the task in time. But they didn't know that I'd lived with these photographs for over 25 years and had already put a years work into the book.

Part 7: Making of the Book

2009-09-07T08:11:00.001-07:00

I didn't have a chance to watch MJ's memorial when it was broadcast. It wasn't until late that evening I that I watched it on one of the cable channels. That's when I finally grieved for the loss of my old friend.

Part 6: Making of the Book

2009-09-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning, July 7. The previous week was hectic and exciting -- photo editors were calling nonstop with MJ photo requests. I hadn't published any of my MJ photos in the press for almost 20 years, and was determined to only release four or five images to the press in order to keep my book a rarity. Steve, the editor at Chronicle Books I'd been talking with for several weeks, said he had six book offers arrive in his email the morning after MJ's passing. He knew the market would be flooded with books, but after looking at my pictures and reading my story, he said none of them compared to mine. Chronicle Books made me an offer that day and I accepted it soon after. So Tuesday morning, the day of the memorial service, I was combing through the book contract. My assistant Manny was busy scanning images. My photo editor, Jessica Hundley and her assistant photo editor, Taye Hansberry were reviewing images and listening to the memorial streaming over the Internet, trying in vain to fight back tears. The emotion in the room was palpable. Bitter sweet. I was in the next room and occasionally heard their quiet sobbing drift out of the studio. I tried to ignore it. But I couldn't.

Part 5: Making of the Book

2009-09-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

Friday morning I walked into my studio and it looked completely different. Everything was just as I'd left it, my mess on the desk, papers scattered around, but the photos on the wall had transformed into something eerily different. The photos bore the image and imprint of a soul no longer on this earth. They were now memento mori, reminders of my own mortality. I was trying to sort this out when the phone rang. Time magazine wanted pictures. They were going to have a special edition out on news stands in 48 hours.Then People magazine and Rolling Stone. The phone did not stop ringing for three days. I was glued to phone and computer. Somehow word got out that I had been MJ's photographer. Calls from Germany and Japan came next.

Part 4: Making of the Book

2009-08-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 25, was a shock for me. I'd just achieved my goal of assembling my proposals for the book the day before and feeling quite satisfied with myself. And then my wife comes into my studio and tells me Michael is dead. I shook my head. Half stunned, half in disbelief. I was in a room surrounded by photos of his face looking at me or staring off into the distance. How can he be dead, I thought, he's all around me in this room. I stopped working and left the studio, turned on the TV like millions of others and watched it all unfold. I hadn't seen this much continuous coverage since I was a child and JFK was assassinated. Suddenly I realized the significance of my photographs had changed. But I was not fully prepared for what would unfold in the following days.

Part 4: Making of the Book

2009-08-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

Part 3: Making of the Book

2009-08-25T14:29:00.001-07:00

Last May I reached out to my childhood friend and one time photo partner Neil Zlozower, he was Van Halen's photographer and published a successful book on the band. Neil told me to contact Steve, his editor at Chronicle Books. Steve and I talked, he expressed interest in my story and I promised him he'd receive a proposal in a month or two.

On Wednesday, June 24, I finished printing three sets of proposals in the digital lab at the university where I teach. Each proposal had 40 pictures and a four page introduction sample of my written narrative. I planned to send them to Taschen Books, Chronicle Books and hadn't quite figured out who the third would be for. I slept well that night because I'd met my goal and the book proposal was ready to send out.

Part 2: Making of the Book

2009-08-25T14:26:00.001-07:00

Last summer of '08 I started developing an exhibition and book of photographs documenting the time I worked for Michael Jackson in the 1980’s . Sometime around February of ’09 I contacted Victoria Dailey, editor extrodinaire, and art book publisher. She came by my studio, examined my photos and insisted that I make a book that reaches far beyond the art community. Victoria said this would be an excellent pop culture book. Convinced, we spent the next few months reforming the project into a compelling story of my time with Michael. By the time spring rolled around I had an edit of 90 photographs and several pages of text I’d use as a book proposal. Now all I had to do was figure out who to send it to.

Part 1: Making of the Book

2009-08-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

The genesis for the Michael Jackson Before He Was King book was born from a conversation I had with German photographer Oliver Sann at the Chicago Art Fair in 2008. The fair mainly featured staged cinematic photography and lacked the power of the documentary photograph. This appeared to be the perfect time to embark on a documentary project and Oliver encouraged me to do so with my Michael Jackson archive.