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INTERVIEW: For you, what kinds of people make the best collaborators?
STEPHANIE SEYMOUR: Well, I always had difficulty as a model just being myself. I can be very shy, and I used to have a lot of anxiety about working on set. But it was really after I worked with Avedon extensively that I learned how to deal with it better. Dick was both a great collaborator and a great director. He taught me a technique where I had to come up with a character each time I was on set. We would work on it together, and he would go to the extent of showing you pictures of your character and playing certain kinds of music. He would say things like, "What would your character be doing? Are you hailing a bus? Are you fainting?" So we would come up with these characters and these situations, and that changed everything for me. Suddenly, it opened up a lot of possibilities.
INTERVIEW: When did you first work with Avedon?
SEYMOUR: I did my first Vogue cover with Dick when I was 18. But I really got to know him when I did a class for him. He was teaching a class about the fashion end of photography, and he had asked Christy Turlington to be his model for it, but she couldn't do it. So then he asked Linda [Evangelista] ... I was his third choice. [laughs] But I was like, "Yes! Yes!" And that's where that picture of me lifting up my dress comes from. There were actually 12 or 15 students watching as we took that picture. Before every picture, there was this intense excitement from Dick, where he has these ideas. I know a lot of girls maybe thought that his ideas were a little crazy sometimes, but I would just go there with him. I loved working with him. When you work with someone like that over a period of time, I think you give each other something. Without that other, deeper kind of collaborative experience, I could not have kept going this long.
INTERVIEW: So much of fashion photography—especially today—is about the image, the end product. But what, for you, is the most enjoyable part of it? Is it seeing that iconic picture? Is it the process?
SEYMOUR: Oh, it's always the process. I know that there is so much more that they can do now with computers, so making images has become a different process. But without the process, I don't believe that you can have that product of a photograph that is memorable. But in terms of retouching and postproduction, Dick was doing all of that stuff, too, swapping heads out and things—and way before computers. I did this photograph with him with these monkeys. It was a double-page and I was looking at the monkey and the monkey was looking at me. We had these two baby monkeys, which were on my arm, but they couldn't be separated from their mother and they were all screaming. So we did the picture where I'm screaming at the monkey, but we couldn't get the shot where I'm screaming at the monkey and the monkey is screaming back at me and we're both facing each other. So Dick shot the monkey separately with the mother where I was, and then he just put it together to create the image.
INTERVIEW: Monkeys sound difficult to work with.
SEYMOUR: But working with animals is exciting.
INTERVIEW: Have you worked with a lot of animals?
SEYMOUR: Oh, yeah. I've worked with Dobermans biting my arm. A bull. An ostrich. Boa constrictors. Snakes are really fascinating. But to relax and be able to have whatever expression you want to have on your face while you're naked and a boa constrictor is draped over your body is not an easy thing to do.
INTERVIEW: What, for you, makes an image iconic?
SEYMOUR: It's when something is memorable, but in a searing way—an image that becomes burned instantly into a person's memory and also brings back all kinds of personal memories for them at the same time. It's something that has that kind of effect on a large number of people.
INTERVIEW: Do you remember your first professional modeling job?
SEYMOUR: How could I forget? It was for Cosmo. I don't know if Cosmo still does this, but they used to do a thing called "Cosmo Tells All" where there were three or four pictures on a spread. They would take a picture of a girl and then write something like "How do you have the best orgasm?" or "How do you get your hair as big as you want it?" I was the picture of a girl with big hair. I was 14, and I remember going to the grocery store before school to get it when it came out. I was so excited ... Those pictures are pretty great.
INTERVIEW: Your mother was very into fashion when you were a kid. Were you into it, too?
SEYMOUR: I wanted to connect with it—and I definitely did connect with it—but in a very local-girl kind of way. I didn't have very sophisticated taste, but I was definitely really into it. When Flashdance [1983] came out, I cut up all my clothes. Everything.
INTERVIEW: Did you have a favorite outfit or piece of clothing when you were a kid?
SEYMOUR: Yeah, I had a couple: my red and black Norma Kamali cowboy boots, and my red mini skirt.
INTERVIEW: Did you wear them together?
SEYMOUR: Of course, I did. [laughs]
interviewmagazine.com
. And it's amazing how beautifully she has (not
) aged, her face and body still look outstanding (except for the chest area
ninja:. Don't mind me. I simply wanted to share what I recently discovered.
I would never expect Stephanie to be so shy based on her images but I still remember her interview with Oprah she was painfully shy.
