Tuesday, November 2, 2010

PORTRAIT BY JEAN DEER

A long time ago, when I was in my early 20's a friend of mine said, “Make sure that at least one time in your life, you have a really excellent portrait taken of yourself…” 

This photograph of me is certainly the one.

The year was 1983, and I was graduating college.  Since I disliked how much my yearbook photo came out, I decided to commission a local photographer whom I heard very good things about.

His name, Jean Deer, with a small studio in Westwood NJ

I remember the day fondly.  I went to his studio with a copy of Andy Warhol’s INTERVIEW magazine, known for its stunning photos by artists such as Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber.  There was a great black and white layout of actor Timothy Hutton by Matthew Rolston, and it was totally the look I wanted for my photo. 

When Jean and I met, I expressed the look I was after and I remember saying that I always felt that I come out “fat in the face”!   He laughed, assured me that he’d keep that in mind and shot about 50 images with his Hasselblad portrait camera.

When I went back the following week to see my proofs, I was very excited with the results.  I thought, if I could only look like this all the time!

In hopes of getting a copy struck from the original negative, I found in searching the internet, that this talented man had suffered a stroke over twelve years ago, making it necessary to leave his then profession.

Please see his website to read about his courage.  I hope to meet up with this artist again sometime in the future…

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