”I knew that I was in the hands of someone special”
It is not the first time that the photographer Richard Corman goes on a trip back memory lane to his 1983 photoshoot with the soon-to-be Queen of Pop in New , but what makes his new interview on the New York Post so special is that he picked up seven of his Madonna portraits and tells the readers the story behind them.
Corman got to know Madonna through his mother Cis, a casting director who often worked with Martin Scorsese. In the early ’80s, she was casting The Last Temptation of Christ, and Madonna was brought in to audition for – what else? – the role of the Virgin Mary.
“She didn’t get the part, but my mother told me I had to meet this woman,” Corman says. “She was an absolute original.”
Corman spent a few days during the spring of ’83 shooting the singer in her East Village neighborhood, and the results capture the 24-year-old Madonna on the cusp of fame just months before she released her self-titled debut album. The rarely seen photos are collected in his new book “Madonna NYC 83,” and are also on display at Chelsea’s Milk Gallery in the City through December 15.
“This is one of the first pictures I took of her,” Corman comments about the now famous black and white portrait of Madonna in her kitchenette. “She leaned on a stove like no one else. I knew that I was in the hands of someone charismatic and special. There was just a sexy, funny quality to her.”
“Everything about these pictures feel modern, whether it’s a sense of fashion or attitude. Everything she’s wearing from her head to her toes, the way she’s doing her hair,” he continues. “If we did these pictures today, there would be 80 people around: stylists and guards and assistants. Even if I had that entourage today, I don’t know if we could create something so beautiful.”
“It was clear every time I was with her that her signatures were there, whether it was crosses, bangles or lace under the torn jeans. She owned it and that was her thing. Nobody else was doing it at the time.”
“In all of these pictures, you see her beauty. You also see her eyes. It was only recently, since I’ve been looking at these pictures closely, I noticed she matched the color of her mole with her eyeliner. It was like a purple tinge. It was wild.”
Check out the full story on nypost.com.
Thanks to our friend digitalfreaknyc.
