Avenaim

The Attraction of Heavenly Bodies
Profile of Advertising & Celebrity Photographer Jerry Avenaim

by Mark Lapin

Jerry Avenaim, photographer to the stars, talks about the passions and techniques that have taken his career to the stratosphere and beyond.

Published: January 2, 2006

Jerry Avenaim’s images of supermodels and celebrities have captivated readers of almost every major magazine in the western world. Combining mastery of lighting techniques, psychological skill in guiding his subjects to the limits of their expressiveness, endless energy and abundant chutzpah, the Los Angeles-based shooter has attracted so much coverage in the photo press that when we asked him to dig deeper into some of the famous stories about his career, he replied with a groan. ‘I don’t know what else I can add,’ he protested. ‘If you dig any deeper, I’ll be buried.’ He then proceeded to oblige, surprise and instruct with a stream of new revelations about his beginnings and the turning points of his high-velocity career in fashion, beauty and celebrity photography.

Although people now associate Avenaim with fashion and fame, his beginnings were anything but glamorous. The work-ethic that drives his career is rooted in the rags-to-riches story of his immigrant parents. They were expelled from Egypt during the Suez Canal crisis (1956) and arrived in Paris virtually penniless. Avenaim was conceived in Paris, but his mother wanted him to be born a U.S. citizen. His parents came over by boat, along with family and friends, and settled in the “not-so-great neighborhood” of Chicago, where Avenaim spent his childhood. “We were very poor,” he said. “My dad had three jobs to support us. He started selling paper and ink supplies out of basement of our house and built a corporation that grew into one of the biggest in Chicago. My mom was the secretary and treasurer. Now they’re happy, healthy and retired in Florida. They live the American dream, and, because of them, so do I.”

Avenaim was a teenager when he got his first camera, an all-manual 35mm Exacta that his father had brought over from Paris. Instead of gathering dust on a shelf, the camera quickly became his key to a happier adolescence. When asked why, Avenaim said, ‘Nobody’s ever printed the real reason. The truth is that I wanted to meet beautiful girls. That’s the politically correct way of putting it. I haven’t wanted to say this because it makes me sound like a pervert but I was 17, and, at that age, guys pick up cameras or electric guitars for one reason. At the end of the day, it all started from a love of women.’

Shut out of the cliques in his suburban Chicago high school, perhaps because he was both a jock and a stoner, Avenaim discovered he could court attractive coeds with his camera. ‘I’d tell a girl that I’d really like to do her picture, the way they did in Vogue. These were girls who would never have given me the time of day. But some of them wanted to be models, so they said okay.’ Although Avenaim insists that his main motives were hormonal, he was already a student of photography who had collected every 70’s-something issue of Vogue and poured over the pictures by Avedon and Penn.

His first studio was the backyard of his parents’ house. He had no meter or lights, and his knowledge of exposure-settings came from the instructions on the Kodak box. But he was always attuned to the psychology of a shoot, the emotional intimacy between photographer and subject, maybe because he was hoping to capture hearts as well as images. ‘It’s a form of photo-psychology,’ he says. ‘You’re complimenting them, telling them how beautiful they are. You’re like ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s it, perfect, gorgeous, perfect. It sounds almost clichéd, but it instills tremendous confidence in the subject and makes them feel incredible about themselves.’

From the start he loved the process, and his models loved the results. ‘Once I gave them pictures, these 16-year-old girls were like: ‘I look Amazing!’ They felt like supermodels. They started showing their friends; the buzz got around real fast and suddenly, even more popular girls were asking me to take their pictures. At the beginning it was just a tactic. I had no idea whether I had any talent. I just kept exploring and studying pictures of people I admired. And the better my pictures got, the more beautiful the girls became.’

Avenaim remains friends with many of the girls he photographed in high school, and, yes, he admits to having gotten romantically involved with a couple of his early models. Those relationships have long since ended but fascination with feminine beauty would continue to have an enduring influence on his career.

‘That’s where that word ‘muse’ comes from,’ he says. ‘Love, lust, sexual energy, it’s all there. Especially when I was shooting fashion in the 80s. Living in Milan, living in Paris, in London. I was young; the models were young, and it was okay. Models will flirt with the photographer and vice versa. Even if it’s innocent, you want to create that intimacy; that little bit of sexual energy. I fell in love with many of my models, and now I’m married to the most beautiful one of all. My wife once told me, I didn’t even find you attractive until I saw you behind the camera. Believe me, that attraction will show in the picture. And if the model finds you vile, the pictures will probably show that, too.’

Avenaim left Chicago to launch his career but his first big breaks in photography came through connections to what he calls the ‘Chicago Mob.’ Freshly arrived in New York, he showed his work to Patrick Demarchelier, hoping to land an assisting job in the studio of the famed fashion photographer. ‘He was polite enough to look at my portfolio, thank me for my time, and that was it. You never find a position like that open.’

Luckily for Avenaim, however, the first assistant at Demarchelier’s studio was a fellow Chicagoan named Tom Sullivan. The two mid-westerners became friends, and when Sullivan was ready to go out on his own, he recommended Avenaim as his replacement. That was all it took. ‘You always trust your first assistant,’ Avenaim says. ‘They’re going to tell you who to work with and who not to work with as well. Assistants, just as much as photographers, need to learn how to network because that’s how they get other assisting jobs.’

One of the most famous anecdotes about Avenaim concerns the near-fatal faux pas he committed on his first day as Demarchelier’s assistant. They were shooting Christie Brinkley, and Avenaim was in awe, mesmerized as he watched the master and the supermodel interact. ‘He was shooting and shooting, and just when I began to think, man, this is a long roll of film, Patrick turned my way and said, in his thick French accent, ‘But zere iz no film in ze camera.’ Avenaim hastily popped in a roll, and the unflappable Demarchelier continued shooting without uttering an angry word or missing a beat. ‘His attitude was: those shots are gone. Just move on. Christie might have known and laughed about it but there other people on the set-- editors, art directors, makeup and hair stylists, and his transition was so smooth that nobody else noticed.’ The incident taught Avenaim lessons he never forgot about how to maintain the momentum of a shoot and how to treat the people who work in your studio.

When he was ready to strike out on his own, Avenaim approached every foreign edition of Vogue asking for a chance to shoot a cover. Only Vogue en Espanol was willing to give him a shot, if he could cajole Cindy Crawford into posing for the cover. Crawford was then at the peak of her popularity. Richard Avedon had just used her for three consecutive covers, and she was booked solid. But she was also part of the Chicago Mob. ‘You’ve got to understand about Chicago,’ he said. ‘We think it’s a big city but it’s actually a very small world, and photography’s a small industry within that world. Our paths had crossed many times and it was always pleasant.’

Crawford made time to help her home-town friend. ‘Her schedule was just incredible,’ Avenaim says, ‘but she showed up at my studio around eight o’clock at night after shooting all day with Peter Lindbergh. Then she had to have her hair and make-up washed off and start again from scratch. We finished this shoot around one in the morning, and she had to turn around and work the next day. That’s what I call a mensch.’

Avenaim got his next big fashion assignment in Milan but he had to earn it with three characteristics that have played a substantial role in his success—perseverance, networking and chutzpah. One morning, after all the top agencies in Milan had passed on his book, Avenaim dropped into a café to raise his spirits with a little caffeine. He ran into a group of talented young photographers who helped him re-edit his book so that it consisted of five photo essays, all in black and white, and all using a romantic, retro, 1940’s look to showcase modern fashion.

That same afternoon, he knocked uninvited on the doors of Italian Vogue. The photo editor looked briefly at his book then left him waiting for an hour before returning with Franca Sozzani, the formidable editor-in-chief of all Conde Nast publications in Italy. Another hour and several espressos later, Avenaim was sitting on the office couch eaves-dropping as Franca presented his work to an advertising client. In his limited Italian, he heard her saying, ‘See how beautiful it is, how romantic, how the pictures tell a story…’

Franca offered him a two-week gig shooting advertising and editorial but Avenaim had the audacity to play hard to get. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to call my agent.’ He gave her the name of a top agent who had turned him down flat that very morning. By the end of the day, Avenaim had both the assignment and the agent he needed to jump-start his fashion career.

In the early 1990’s, Avenaim moved to Los Angeles and shifted his focus from fashion to celebrity photography. He sees a continuum between shooting clothes and shooting stars, especially in terms of story-telling. But the erotic charge of fashion doesn’t quite carry over into the celebrity world. ‘You’re not selling sex with celebrities, you’re selling celebrity. You have to use a different psychology,’ he says. ‘These are seasoned professionals. I’m a seasoned professional. You don’t cross that line. I’m trying to bring out a genuine emotion, and I often do that verbally, saying something for a reaction, even something brash.’

Having worked for 15 years with stars as diverse as Halle Berry, Ben Stiller and Angela Bassett, just to name a few, as well as some more notorious personalities like actor Robert Blake, Avenaim has some surprising insights. He believes that most celebrities feel uncomfortable in front of a still camera. They’re accustomed to film or TV, which give them hours or minutes to reveal character. With stills, it’s all over in the blink of an eye. Celebrities trust Avenaim because of his reputation for never doing anything to make them look foolish. Because of that trust, they’re often willing to let the creative dynamic of the shoot carry them to unexpected images. Avenaim is a stickler for pre-shoot planning and preparation but during a session, he’s always ready to go with the flow.

His images of Robert Blake may be the best example. Avenaim went out to Blake’s ranch shortly before the irascible actor was arrested on suspicion of murder (he has since been cleared of criminal charges but found guilty in a civil suit). Blake had agreed to do a full feature for Detour magazine but didn’t like any of the clothes Avenaim bought for the shoot. When Avenaim persisted, Blake decided he liked the photographer even less than the clothes. ‘At that point, I could have either packed my bags and left,’ says Avenaim, ‘or do what came to mind. I said, ‘Okay, you don’t like the clothes but you still want to do the shoot, so why don’t you stand out there naked?’ Blake did just that. Those were the most iconic images ever taken of him, and he’s never done another shoot.’

Blake had nothing to say to the photographer, either while he was standing nude on the porch, or afterwards, when Avenaim sent him a set of prints. But he was pleased enough to show off the images during an appearance on the David Letterman show 2 Robert Blake

Avenaim got another great shot of a celeb with a crotchety reputation when he photographed the judges of American Idol. A fan of the show, he knew that Simon Cowl was always the harshest critic of the aspiring stars. Showing no mercy, even for the youngest, most vulnerable contestants, Simon sometimes annoyed his fellow judges with acid-tongued tirades. ‘He may be a sweet, sweet man in reality but he’s the judge America loves to hate. I think the audience wanted to see him not talking. Like enough, already. Shut your mouth,’ says Avenaim, who decided to photograph Cowl gagged and bound to a chair while the rest of the cast enjoyed his predicament. ‘The other judges found great pleasure in gagging him and tying him up,’ says Avenaim, ‘because they were a little sick of hearing him talk, too.’

Being malleable to the mood of the moment was also Avenaim’s key to catching the spirit of the cast of Malcolm in the Middle. ‘We shot that in the kitchen of their set,’ says Avenaim. ‘It was their Christmas dinner two years ago. There was a tree with lights in the background, and my idea was to create this very Norman-Rockwell look because that’s not at all who they play on the show. So I had the mom in an apron, smiling while she held the ham, and the dad was sitting at head of table, the smiling, proud father.’

Once he had his shots, Avenaim told the kids to start eating, and before he knew it, they started an all-out food fight. The mom ran out of the room, and didn’t come back till the food stopped flying. ‘It wasn’t planned. It was just something that happened, and I kept shooting,’ says Avenaim. ‘Everyone was covered with food-- mashed potatoes, gravy, you name it. Only the mom was still clean. I told her to put her hands on her hips and stand at the head of the table, like—‘I cannot believe you guys just did this after I worked so hard to cook that food.’

In the end, Fox chose to publish the unplanned food-fight image rather than the pre-planned Norman Rockwell look. ‘You go into every shoot with ideas but you know it’s just a template for the creative process,’ says Avenaim. ‘I try to find out as much as I can about a celebrity before a shoot. I want to find common ground, common interests, create rapport. The only way you’re going to get a gift from your subject is by hearing them, seeing them, interacting with them, engaging them.’

Having scaled so many professional peaks, Avenaim now takes great satisfaction in encouraging young photographers and giving back to the profession that has given so much to him. He lectures around the country by invitation and for the Mamiya Masters series, willingly disclosing lighting techniques that many photographers would keep as tightly guarded secrets. He is also looking forward to the publication of three books of his celebrity and personal work in 2006. For more details see our interview.