Madonna and Helmut (Jeff Markus)

I didn't want anyone to miss this great comment, about print size.

Jeff Markus writes: "When I was assisting and printing for Norman Seeff his standard print was 16x20, from 35mm Panatomic-X negs. Image size came in at about 13x19. This had been his standard procedure for many years by the time I started working for him. He originally came up in the business by designing and shooting record album covers, 12x12 inches, so this sizing gave him anywhere from a slight to a large reduction for repro, thus maximizing quality.

"Another consequence of this sizing is that a person's face in a tight shot becomes life-size, or even a bit larger. The impact of this can be surprisingly powerful. And if the shot is a group of maybe half a dozen band members, each of their faces is large enough to be easily read.

"The common practice at that time was for portfolio prints to be no larger than 11x14, the theory being that you didn't want to piss off art directors by making your book too unwieldy. Norman's was 16x20, with about three dozen prints in it, and was a real handful. I do remember at shoots seeing some AD's struggle with that monster, but its visual strength was undeniable.

"When I was printing for Helmut Newton his usual print was 11x14; negs were Tri-X Pro out of a Hasselblad. This worked well for magazine repro and he said he just liked the size. His older 35mm negs worked well at that scale too. He was still putting out Newton's Illustrated at that time, which was larger than the usual magazine format. 11x14 reproduced with a slight upsize for full-page photos gave Helmut the look that he wanted.

"One magazine job varied from this a bit, and the result was quite unexpected, to me, at least. He shot Madonna for a spread in Vanity Fair, as a tough leather-girl with a knife, and she had final approval for any images of her that would be published. It was rare at the time (late '80s) for celebrities to have this as a contracted right...Helmut would have to send her a set of prints of his choices for her to okay. We couldn't send his set because they had to go to the magazine; we were on deadline and they might be damaged or delayed. Helmut asked me do another set, but as 8x10's.

"To my surprise, the smaller prints transformed the images into something completely different. They became delicate and gem-like, precious, very unlike any other Helmut Newton prints I have ever seen, or made.

"I sent them out to Madonna late in the afternoon and they were returned the next morning, all approved. The tough girl had rated them by preference, with one to four little red hearts on the lower right margins."

As a former pro custom B&H exhibition printer, I can tell you that if Jeff printed for Helmut Newton and Norman Seeff he's a heck of a printer. Both those photographers were noted for their superb prints and high standards. (If you don't know the name Norman Seeff, he shot the cover photo of Joni Mitchell's masterpiece "Hejira," the famous shot of the young Steve Jobs sitting cross-legged with the original Macintosh in his lap, and the well-known photo of a laughing Ray Charles with the piano keys reflected in his sunglasses. And many more. By the way, younger readers can mock, but I truly miss album covers. They were a brightly-lit shop window for the work of so many photographers).

Thanks much for the tales, Jeff.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Helcio J. Tagliolatto: "Among TOP readers there are great stories of life and profession, waiting to be revealed."

David Saxe: "In the early '60s, Bluenote and Prestige jazz record albums were some of my first photographic influences. There is even a great book, The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff which includes some of their best covers."

Leo Kawczinski: "I love these sorts of posts. They remind me of the depth and breadth of TOP's audience and the experience that informs the comments."

Tom Dills: "Not only do I miss album covers, but I also miss the liner notes."

Comments

[Crabby Umbo]

Interesting about Norman Seeff...before I graduated into commercial photography, I used to shoot a lot of 35mm Panatomic-X under strobe, and remember thinking, when I used to see his album covers (and before you could ever get technology info from a photographer for any reason), that the prints sure looked like Panatomic-X. 50 years later, problem solved!

[Bill Tyler]

"16x20, from 35mm Panatomic-X negs." Just curious how the Pan-X was developed. I found that underdevelopment (at least by Kodak standards) slightly give a very smooth, almost grainless neg.

[robert e]

Great stories and insight! Thanks for sharing. There was great photography and graphics on record covers, but what I miss more are the back covers that were sometimes chock full of information, appreciations, lyrics, or photos of the band, crew and ephemera.

By the way, I'm pretty sure it's the younger folks behind the resurgence of vinyl records. If they're mocking anything, it's that so many of us got suckered into replacing them with CDs.

[Peter Baglole]

Speaking of album covers, I have always liked the Stephen Paley photo on the cover of Live Cream. It really matched up well with the music and conjured up in my mind imaginations of seeing them live.

[Zyni Moë]

Two mistakes with prints, I think.

First is that people forget that prints are physical objects. So, if the image subtends π/3 it does not matter if it is giant thing on wall far away or small thing you hold in your hand close by. It does matter because prints are physical objects: holding a thing in your hand matters.

Second is that people forget that prints are physical objects. So if you are looking at vast print far away you can pretend you have only one eye and do idealised ray optics, but if you are looking at a small print close to, then you must remember that you have two eyes, quite far apart, and they see quite geometrically different images of the print now, and so it looks quite different.

Prints are not images: they are physical objects. Images are boring, prints are not.

[Steve Rosenblum]

Wow!

[G Geradts]

My first thoughts when i saw this headline: Frau Merkel und Herr Kohl (Madonna and Helmut). And I am even not german!

[Mark]

Mike, we all know size matters. It’s kinda like money. When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. And now, with PS’s new feature of Super-Resolution, as reported on by among others Scott Kelby, size will be within mere mortals’ grasps.

[MikePlews]

I too love album covers. I have a poor education and a lot of what I know about jazz I got from reading album covers.
When Creed Taylor decided to break away and start CTI records he tapped the great photo enchanter Pete Turner for cover art.
One of my favorites being the chopper shot on the cover of Kenny Burrell's God Bless the Child.
https://www.amazon.com/God-Bless-Child-Kenny-Burrell/dp/B00FASBCPE/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y8LFYQYTQAYF&dchild=1&keywords=kenny+burrell+god+bless+the+child&qid=1615994867&sprefix=kenny+burrell+god%2Caps%2C227&sr=8-1
If you look at the inside of a vintage vinyl copy you will find this offer.
"cover photograph available as a large (11x14in.) custom color print for $19.50. Each photograph is printed by K&L Color Laboratories according to the photographers own standards".
In the army in the late 60's I spent a lot of time under a set of Koss Pro4a headphones being transported by all sorts of music while enjoying the album covers too.
It's kind of a dreary, rainy day here in the scenic Loess Hills of Western Iowa so perhaps it would be good to pull out one of the AC Jobim "lounge" albums and follow it off with Revolver while the corned beef cooks.
Just upgraded my cart to an Ortofon Red so it should sound pretty good.

[Mike, I grew up down the street from Johnny Koss, the son of the founder of Koss headphones whose name was also John I believe. The Pro4a was a standard for years way back when. --Mike]

[Christer Almqvist]

A visit to http://normanseeff.com is worthwhile.

[Rod S.]

I find those observations and insights by Jeff Markus to be both interesting on an intellectual level and engaging on an emotional level. The common thread is the power inherent in a well-crafted physical print. Thank you, Jeff.

Surely, there is a book in this topic. One that distills the experiences and insights of expert printers as to the effects of size and format shape and to the power of the print itself.

[Jeff Markus]

Crabby Umbo and Bill Tyler,

You guys both nailed it. Norman has always shot with strobe and umbrellas, whether in studio or on location. Rating Pan-X at 32 ASA and Kodachrome 25 also at 32 ASA allowed us to interchange color and B+W loaded bodies at will, without having to worry about exposure.

For processing the Pan-X I used D-76 as what could be described as a partial-replenishment soup, using less fresh developer than Kodak specified. This insured that highlights on peoples' faces never got too dense to print smoothly, a slight compensating effect. The negs would be just a touch thin and flat, but with good detail in the shadows. Though I never tested it out, it was my understanding that this also served to soften the grain somewhat.

Mike, I'm a bit older than you are, and I sure do miss going to record stores to look at covers. Used to do that even when I had no money to buy anything, it was just the best way to see what was current in photography and graphic design. That was how I first became aware of Norman's work, several of my favorite covers were done by him. And you would meet the most interesting
people there. In high school, the first couple of times I ever smoked the evil weed were in the blacklight room at the back of a record shop on the Sunset strip.

When cd's started really selling I did several jobs reprinting Norman's old covers, because record companies had lost the original artwork. It was always a letdown to see how the tiny 6x6 images compared to 12x12's. Norman's Ray Charles shot, an outtake from an advertising shoot, was used for the cover of "Genius Loves Company", but only released as a cd as far as I know.
That was a great shoot, Ray told us the story of how he learned to drive...