Post by darkstar on Jan 2, 2005 0:26:46 GMT
JIM MORRISON & THE MIDNIGHT PHOTOGRAPHER
By Gloria Stavers
Reprint to Relix Magazine Vol. 10 No. 1 February 1983
In the fall of 1967 when the Doors’ “Light My Fire” was blazing at the top of the charts, a fortuitous meeting between the ascending phenomenon Jim Morrison and rock’s force motrice. Photo-journalist Gloria Stavers, took place in her Manhattan apartment late one night. It was the beginning of an intense and intimate artistic and intellectual relationship.
Inter alia, Gloria introduced Jim to the camera as a living entity with ‘a spirit of its own.’ Gloria told him: “It’s not just a lens you look into. It’s an opening, a doorway that you pass through and when you do you many be whatever or whomever you choose to be – a lover, a killer, son, animal or knight-templier. You may seduce, terrify, amaze, mystify or cast a spell. All you have to do is dance for it and the camera will reflect your persona to the world.”<br>
“Jim was a natural – like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe,” Gloria recalls. “He took to the camera like a lover to the beloved. It was utterly fascinating to photograph him. During the sessions we circled each other like curious lions. He loved it. That first night he said to me, ‘Oh, I see – I am the snake and you are the flute.’ Exactly.”<br>
His response was immediate and electric. From the first note to the last the long midnight session vibrated with a fierce and forbidden music – music just on this side of the parallax of madness.
In the end the snake won.
Some very sensitive and intuitive performers – instinctly perceive the hidden magic of the camera and to surrender up to it some of the mysteriousness of their inner-being. Replications of such stars in these moments are piercing and unforgettable. They stay with us forever.
One night when we were in the midst of such an exotic sarabande Jim suddenly asked me, “Is it true that each time I look in there (the lens) and you shoot me you take a piece of my soul?”<br>
“Yes,” I replied. “It is an act of love.”<br>
“And I am accepting the invitation when I look in?”<br>
“Yes.”<br>
A strange sadness seemed to sweep over him. After the first few beats he said, “Then sometimes I won’t look at you. Some things I will keep secret.”<br>
And he turned away for a while, back to his private and inviolate inner-world.
By Gloria Stavers
Reprint to Relix Magazine Vol. 10 No. 1 February 1983
In the fall of 1967 when the Doors’ “Light My Fire” was blazing at the top of the charts, a fortuitous meeting between the ascending phenomenon Jim Morrison and rock’s force motrice. Photo-journalist Gloria Stavers, took place in her Manhattan apartment late one night. It was the beginning of an intense and intimate artistic and intellectual relationship.
Inter alia, Gloria introduced Jim to the camera as a living entity with ‘a spirit of its own.’ Gloria told him: “It’s not just a lens you look into. It’s an opening, a doorway that you pass through and when you do you many be whatever or whomever you choose to be – a lover, a killer, son, animal or knight-templier. You may seduce, terrify, amaze, mystify or cast a spell. All you have to do is dance for it and the camera will reflect your persona to the world.”<br>
“Jim was a natural – like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe,” Gloria recalls. “He took to the camera like a lover to the beloved. It was utterly fascinating to photograph him. During the sessions we circled each other like curious lions. He loved it. That first night he said to me, ‘Oh, I see – I am the snake and you are the flute.’ Exactly.”<br>
His response was immediate and electric. From the first note to the last the long midnight session vibrated with a fierce and forbidden music – music just on this side of the parallax of madness.
In the end the snake won.
Some very sensitive and intuitive performers – instinctly perceive the hidden magic of the camera and to surrender up to it some of the mysteriousness of their inner-being. Replications of such stars in these moments are piercing and unforgettable. They stay with us forever.
One night when we were in the midst of such an exotic sarabande Jim suddenly asked me, “Is it true that each time I look in there (the lens) and you shoot me you take a piece of my soul?”<br>
“Yes,” I replied. “It is an act of love.”<br>
“And I am accepting the invitation when I look in?”<br>
“Yes.”<br>
A strange sadness seemed to sweep over him. After the first few beats he said, “Then sometimes I won’t look at you. Some things I will keep secret.”<br>
And he turned away for a while, back to his private and inviolate inner-world.