As an artist and photographer all my life, one of my favorite fashion models from years past was Tatjana Patitz.
She was one of the elite crew of original supermodels from the 80s and 90s. I was always mesmerized by her wide, expansive eyes, with those hooded lids that hid and revealed so much at the same time.
She passed away yesterday at the age of 56 of breast cancer. Now that I am in my late 60s I look at anyone dying in their 50s and 60s as having died way too young. Peace to her and her family.
Here is a selection of photos from her career.
Tatjana Patitz, 1991, Getty ImageTatjana Patitz, 1986, Irving PennLeft to right – Stephanie Seymour, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, and Naomi Campbell, 1989, Herb Ritts Tatjana Patitz, RunwayTatjana Patitz, Peter Lindbergh
Models getting ready for a shoot are sometimes more interesting and fun to photograph than the shoot itself.
The Application
She had been running around off-set wondering where her lip gloss was, so when she found it I followed her into the kitchen at the auto repair shop/photography studio and took some shots as she put it on.
We were having a photo shoot in an auto repair garage that adjoins the photography studio. We had someone in who was giving a tutorial on studio lighting. At one point he asked this model to do some poses on a divan/couch with her shirt pulled up, exposing her abs and belly button. I could tell she was a bit uncomfortable with that and was worried about what her parents would think, especially her father. The poses weren’t exploitive as such, but they were on the cheesy side and I could tell she was a bit awkward about it.
Turns out she has the same name as one of my daughters and graduated from the same high school, a few years later. We talked a bit about her going to college and what she wanted to do. She seemed to like the photos I took off-set. I will have to ask her what she thought about the ones I mentioned above.
Our photo club was having a photo shoot in the auto repair garage that is attached to the photography studio where we meet. They had brought out all the lights and back drops into the garage to do a tutorial on studio lighting.
It was a bit too crowded to really hear what they were saying so I stole a few of the models and went to another part of the garage where I found a scaffold for them to get up on. I went up a ladder and got this shot, among others.
I had the camera on manual settings for a long exposure and then added the flash at the end to get the effect.
For many years after we moved from California and I wasn’t creating art work for exhibiting and selling I was creating backgrounds for my computer. I probably made at least one a day for many years.
The original photographs were not mine, but were taken from online fashion photographs in most cases, then used in the collage. Click on the image then go to ‘all sizes’ to see it as large as it should be seen. Use it as a background yourself if you would like.
