Monday, September 7, 2009

Part 5: Making of the Book

Friday morning I walked into my studio and it looked completely different. Everything was just as I'd left it, my mess on the desk, papers scattered around, but the photos on the wall had transformed into something eerily different. The photos bore the image and imprint of a soul no longer on this earth. They were now memento mori, reminders of my own mortality. I was trying to sort this out when the phone rang. Time magazine wanted pictures. They were going to have a special edition out on news stands in 48 hours.Then People magazine and Rolling Stone. The phone did not stop ringing for three days. I was glued to phone and computer. Somehow word got out that I had been MJ's photographer. Calls from Germany and Japan came next.
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Bio

My photo
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Todd Gray photographed Michael Jackson over a period of 10 years, often as Jackson's chosen photographer. He has shot numerous album covers and directed music videos, and his photo-based artwork is in the permanent collections of museums in the U.S. and abroad. He is currently a professor of art and photography at Cal State University, Long Beach, and lives in Los Angeles.
Photographer Todd Gray worked with Michael Jackson for several years before Jackson requested that he become his personal photographer, a relationship that would encompass the singer's performances with the Jacksons through the release of his smash solo albums Off the Wall and Thriller. 

This collection of unseen, intimate, and joyful pictures of Michael taken over a span of 10 years reveal him at home, with his family and fans, in career-making live performances, and the on the "Beat It" video shoot. 

A young black man not much older than Jackson at the time they met, Gray brings unique insights to his time with the singer, contributing stories and context to the images, presenting a rare, intimate portrait of Jackson at a creative peak as he grew from a brilliantly talented young man into a pop icon.