BIG SHOTS ⋙ ANDY WARHOL POLAROIDS

"The best thing about a picture is that it never changes. Even when the people in it do."

~Andy Warhol

ETERNAL YOUTH

Christian Brylle photographs himself with & Freja Beha Erichsen for V Man in an homage to the poetic, eternal bond of youth shared by Patti Smith & Robert Mapplethorpe. Inspired by their beautifully raw sessions with Norman Seeff in 1969. You can see it all in my previous blog post here.

Styled by Goerge Cortina

JUST KIDS

Patti Smith + Robert Mapplethorpe

Photographed by Norman Seeff in the glamorous poverty of their Chelsea Hotel room, 1969

“I met Patti and Robert at Max’s Kansas City, a now infamous downtown bar where artists and musicians hung out. We hit it off immediately. I found them fascinating and they agreed to do a session with me. I was staying with some friends in an apartment on W. 72nd street and I photographed them in the kitchen and in the small studio we’d set up in the living room.

Robert told me he was a graphic artist and wanted to airbrush one of my images- I knew almost nothing about Patti or what she did. I never really thought these images would go anywhere, other than to build my New York portfolio, but their exchanges were a beautiful, loving thing to capture.

Two or three weeks after the session Robert came back with a couple of my photographs and I was stunned at how gorgeous his airbrush work was.  There was something about what he did that was incredibly hip. At the same time he asked me if he could come to my sessions and often he would come and watch me take photographs.

I had no way of knowing the cultural impact that they would both later have. After Robert’s death Patti told me that these shots come closest to her remembrance of the profundity of the love between them.”

~Norman Seeff

BEGGARS BANQUET

ELLE France: December 2012

Photographer: Max Vadukul

Model: Camille Rowe-Pourcheresse

Styled by: Elissa-Cannelle Castelbou

Candelabras, taxidermy, goblets, thrones, 13th century tapestries and a face like Marianne Faithfull… This editorial is undoubtedly inspired by The Rolling Stones 1968 album Beggars Banquet, originally captured by photographer Michael Joseph at Sarum Chase Mansion in London. Looks to me like it may have been shot in and around the same castle?

RETURN TO OZ

Oz was a popular underground magazine in London during the late 1960's. It was about sex, drugs, rock&roll, fantasy, love, freedom & waking up, and it was one of the most visually exciting publications of its time. Several editions included psychedelic wrap-around or pull-out posters and the cover of Oz #11 included a collection of multi-color stickers. The magazine regularly enraged the British Establishment with a range of left-field stories including heavy critical coverage of the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement, discussions of drugs, sex and alternative lifestyles, homosexuality and contentious political stories. The fianl issue issue Oz #48 was published in November 1973.

Below: Oz Editors Richard Neville, Felix Dennis and Jim Anderson