BETTY Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel (born 1954) is an American photographer, who obtained popular acclaim with his work in US and Italian Vogue and his photographs of friend Madonna in her 1992 book Sex. He is now considered one of the most successful fashion photographers in the industry, shooting regularly for both US and Italian Vogue, and lately W (also published by Condé Nast). One of Meisel's first jobs was to work for fashion designer Halston as an illustrator. He also taught illustration part-time at Parsons. Meisel never thought he could become a photographer. He admired photographers like Jerry Schatzberg, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Bert Stern. He felt that illustration was a thing of the past and found photography as a lasting medium. Later on, while working at Women's Wear Daily as an illustrator, he went to Elite Model Management where two girls working there allowed him take pictures of some of their models. He would photograph them in his apartment in Gramercy Park or on the street: on weekdays he would work at Women's Wear Daily and on weekends with the models. One of them was Phoebe Cates. Some of these models took their pictures to Seventeen magazine to show their model books and the people at Seventeen subsequently called Meisel and asked if he wanted to work with them.

Meisel currently works for many different fashion magazines, including US and Italian Vogue, in which he has photographed every cover for two decades. His studio is located in New York City at 64 Wooster Street but he often rents the studios at Pier59 in New York and Smashbox Studios in Los Angeles.
^-^
http://www.supermodels.nl/photographers/stevenmeisel
http://www.egodesign.ca/en/article.php?article_id=300&page=3
http://www.theimagist.com/taxonomy/term/73