In My Stairwell

One of the great challenges of this project was tailoring each photo in order to accommodate the great range of individuals I worked with. Sometimes the shoots were conceptual and other times they had more to do with how the subjects viewed themselves rather than how I viewed them, and that was equally as interesting. In certain cases, I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to say, and other times, it was much more intuitive or improvisational.

My stairwell may be unadorned, decidedly offstage, and very small, but the creativity of so many talented people jammed into one space is enormous. Each artist, dancer, and writer brings a different personality to the room, and Seliger captures that spirit in each photograph. From Paul McCartney to Susan Sarandon, from Tom Wolfe to Lou Reed, all of the participants in this project demonstrate the greatest integrity and highest creativity in their crafts. Other memorable portraits include those of Tony Hawk, Richard Serra, Bill Irwin, Laurie Anderson, and Lenny Kravitz. All 75 photographs were printed with a turn-of-the-century platinum palladium photographic process, a procedure that results in a highly detailed, rich texture. The images are printed in tritone. Fred Woodward, the prominent New York designer of Rolling Stone and such ground-breaking books as Crazy, Sexy, Cool, is the mastermind behind the book's cutting-edge design.