Photographer Lindsay Lozon and Taking It Off

By DREW Rowsome
05 Feb 2019

While it is always fascinating to explore the themes and processes of the MGT cover photographers, it is an enhanced experience when one has actually experienced them at work in the act of creation. So when publisher Sean Leber announced that he had got Lindsay Lozon to agree to an interview and for us to publish his work, I jumped at the chance. Lozon has had three bestselling books published, multiple exhibits of his work that resulted in prints being bought by major collectors, and no model or actor's portfolio was complete without a Lindsay Lozon body shot. His direct, deceptively simple, photos are intensely flattering as well as eye-catching and full of personality.

The occasion is the impending publication of Lozon's new book Taking It Off. "It's a project I started about three years ago," says Lozon. "The cover shot is probably one of the first body shots I ever did. It dates back to the mid-'80s, maybe around '82 or '83, and the very last shot in the book is the very last body shot I ever did. This kid from Toronto came down to Sarnia and we went to the beach and I did the shot of him with his backside."

Lozon has created a huge body of work and perusing the 400 pages of Taking It Off reveals photos that are familiar and iconic, but there are also many surprises. "It's a total retrospective," says Lozon. "There are some shots from the old books and a lot of new stuff. Stuff that I haven't even thought of putting in a book before, ones that I came across in my collection of negatives and contact sheets. I've literally got thousands of negatives, they took up the whole basement. Since I've been doing the book, I've also got about 70 framed prints that at some point in time I want to do another exhibit with. I've got a whole mixture of different frames, old and new, and a mix of prints, 8 x 10s, 11 x 14s and 16 x 20s even. So it's going to be a very nice show."

Sorting through that amount of material was a daunting task. "I just started scanning and I'd shot a lot of stuff from the time of the last book to this book," says Lozon. "I kept all of it and I wanted it to be a bit of a mix from beginning to end. Everything is in this book. Everything is 100 percent that I love, there's no filler. I kept changing pages and mixing and matching. I'm almost afraid to print it, I enjoy that part of it so much. I think I've finished it. I like the way it looks right now."

Just after Lozon and I talked, he was eagerly awaiting the first printed test copies to arrive for proofing. "Fingers crossed the printing looks good," he says. "They've done a nice job in the past.The book is for whoever wants one, I'm not printing quantities. You have to buy it, pre-pay for it, and I'll do a print and mail it out. If I sell one copy, I'll be happy. If I sell 10 copies I'll be happy. It's self-gratifying. There are shots in this book that people have never seen before, I've never published before, in fact that I've never printed before. It's going to be a very private book for those who want a collection of my stuff."

When I tell Lozon how consistent and timeless the photographs are, he agrees, "The cover shot and the back shot, as much as they are 30 years apart, they could have been shot on the same day. No distractions. There's a couple of boys in there with the erections and stuff like that. That was all part of them, that was part of why they came to shoot with me and that's what their personality was. It's just that simple. They're not graphic in any way, they're just there. That's how I see it."

However he does note that, "Some of the photos in the book I can't put out on the internet. Some of them are more private. Those guys have moved on."

When I struggled to reference photographers that Lozon's work reminds me of, he gently contradicts me. "I had never followed photographers. I grew up with a camera in my hand. I had a camera when I was 10 years old, shooting home movies, shooting stills. It was just something that came to me naturally I guess. That style was always just there for me. I never looked at other photographers' work, I was always just interested in what I was doing. I just shot people simply and the way they were."

Lozon is also well known for shooting many of the iconic covers for fab magazine in its two golden ages. Working with editor-in-chief Mitchel Raphael, Lozon shot covers that are still provocative: mayor David Miller in leather, Olivia Chow and the Honourable Jack Layton with a buff mountie, and innumerable hot men in scenarios from suggestive to outlandish.

"A lot of that was Mitchel," says Lozon. "I was reluctant to shoot for fab at first. Mitchel had to call me three or four times. I wasn't really sure what fab was all about and what I had seen wasn't exactly impressive. But then Mitchel started in, started art directing, and his art direction was incredible. We worked together. I have every single cover of fab that I shot all put away. I don't know how many I shot. Mitchel and I worked well together. And the covers stood out."

That was when I first met Lozon. There was always electric excitement when he would bring the proofs of the next covers to the office. Though always soft-spoken and collaborative, after all he was working with Mitchel who was a benign dictator who modelled his management style after Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, Lozon was a little intimidating simply because he was so focussed and so respected as an artist. And I was a lowly intern.

Mitchel had a habit of conceiving a brilliant cover that then needed a story to go with it. Many of those were my assignments, and it was hard work coming up with text that lived up to Lozon's photographs. "The very first cover I shot with Mitchel, the guy who was gift-wrapped and bodypainted," says Lozon, "I used it this year as a Christmas card on my website. He had me hooked after that. Every cover was something quite different."

When, after a few years away, I became editor of fab, I got to work with Lozon again. The majority of the covers were under the jurisdiction of my fellow editor Matt Thomas, but the cover of our 2010 Christmas Gift Guide, the first issue to be printed entirely on glossy paper, was my responsibility. I explained my concept to Lozon and emailed him a couple of illustrations by Alberto Vargas that were my visual touchstones. He immediately countered with visual examples that were improvements, incidentally showing his knowledge of art history, pin-ups and composition. 

I had hired an aspiring sports model who had a less twinky look than a traditional fab cover boy. He was extremely nervous, but Lozon immediately put him at ease. He had done it many times before. "Those guys when they came into the studio, they came for body shots," explains Lozon about his process. "I said, 'Forget about your body. Your body's perfect. Be yourself. Give me a personality, the body will follow.' I would work with them and work with them. Most of them were amazing. It's the personality that has to come through and it does in those shots. You can see it in their faces, their comfort level."

The studio was a hive of activity with lights being set, props assembled and Rob Closs assessing the make-up requirements, but Lozon was calm, steady, and continually discussing ways to enhance the concept. And then we hit our first snag. The model was too hirsute for Lozon's liking. I was all for contrasting the Vargas girl sensibility with blatant masculinity (in fact that was what I was hoping for, a mild form of sexy gender fuck) but Lozon insisted it wouldn't photograph well. Instanteously he pulled up more images on his laptop to prove his point, and I had to agree he was right. He then proceeded to persuade the novice model to be shaved head to toe, have his abs enhanced with make-up, and to pose essentially naked in multiple and obviously uncomfortable poses until Lozon knew that we had the shot.

What was supposed to be a short simple shoot stretched into a full day and into the evening. Lozon never lost his soft-spoken cool and it was mesmerizing to watch as he coaxed the shy and nervous model into becoming impossibly alluring while remaining resolutely masculine. In the cab back to the office, the model pulled out his phone and enthused to his girlfriend that the shoot had been an incredible experience. And that she was going to enjoy the feel of his newly denuded skin.

Lozon's people skills are as sharp as his eye. I ask if it is different when working with celebrities. "You would think so but not really, " he says. "They're just people. I was nervous as hell when I shot my first celebrity, Shania Twain. When she came up those stairs I was shaking in my boots. Following me was the CBC with four guys with huge cameras on their heads. They were behind me as I was shooting her which made me more nervous. But the shots came out amazing."

Twain was the first of many. "I shot Celine Dion in her hotel room in Toronto,' he reminisces. "We were only supposed to have 20 minutes with her and we were in there for three or four hours. Sweet as pie, just so nice. Gaga was the other big star and she couldn't have been nicer. She came up and gave me a big hug before we even started shooting. When I got the negatives back, I was looking through them, looking for something different, something special. And I realized they're just people. They had their eyes closed, they were blinking, bad shot, good shot, same as anybody else. But sweet people, nice people."

And it was a celebrity endorsement that moved Lozon into the big leagues. "Elton John, that came out of the blue," says Lozon of the musician and owner of one the world's most outstanding photography collections. "I was sitting in the studio one day and the phone rang and it was Elton John. An article had been written about me in an Australian magazine and so he called. He bought seven or eight prints of mine. He called back a few times looking for images that were on my website. He ordered huge prints, 16 x 20, and afterwards he gave me four tickets to his concert and we met him backstage."

If the Taking It Off book and exhibition have a retrospective hue, they are also indicators of a transformation in Lozon's career. "About eight years ago I moved," he explains. "I had some health issues and Sarnia's my hometown. It's a nice little town. I left here where I was 20 or 21 years old and moved to Toronto. I was in Toronto for 30 or 35 years. My sister invited me back to stay at her place for awhile to deal with what I was going through. I also needed a break from Toronto. I was finished to say the least. I was seven years in that building at Leslie and Queen. The area was getting incredibly busy and incredibly expensive. When I moved in there I was paying about $1,100, when I moved out I was paying $1,800. It was just ridiculous. You have to keep moving to get those rents paid and still live. Sarnia's so much cheaper, there's no comparison."

Inevitably his art evolved to reflect his surroundings."It's a whole different ball game here," he says. "I do portraits, I shot a few weddings, I did a huge family reunion that turned out amazing. Grandmothers and granddaughters, parents and kids, and the shot turned out absolutely incredible. It's actually on my website. I'm not really a wedding photographer, I shied away from it, but I don't mind doing them and hopefully I'll put a little twist to them of some sort. You're shooting dresses and grooms and bridesmaids. There are shots you have to cover. I'm not doing any models, not doing any boys. I've been asked but I'm not pursuing it. If you want to come to Sarnia I'll be glad to shoot you. I don't usually charge for that kind of stuff. I do it for myself."

While photography is still an artform that Lozon is deeply embedded in, the business of photography has changed. "When digital took over, so many people were offering their services for free," says Lozon. "They wanted to put their names on stuff and if you go into any website like Kijiji, you'll see a list of photographers who say they'll shoot your wedding for free, just put my name on it. That got to be a real problem for a lot of photographers.They're shooting weddings for $200 or $300 and they're only hurting themselves. In the long run it hurts everybody."

While not condoning, he understands. "New photographers want to get their name out. When I was young and new in the business, I'd do a lot of testing and stuff for free. Eventually I got the jobs. It was different then, we were shooting film and you had to know what you were doing. I went shooting catalogues for Eaton's in Mexico and Florida and places like that, and we'd be down there for 10 days and we'd be shooting film. You had to come back with results. It was a huge change when things went to digital."

Lindsay's photographs have always been erotic but in an innocent fresh way. In an interview with fab on the state of photography, he had talked about losing commercial jobs because he was seen as the man who shot 'boys in their underwear.' "That's always an issue," he says. "I've always had that in the background. When I got the MGT invitation, I said to Steven my lover, we've been together for 35 years,  that I was done with that, and I didn't want it all over the internet. And then I thought about it and I thought, damn it, this is who I am and this is a huge part of my life. A huge part. So here I am. The homophobia is always going to be there. I've got to live my own life, not somebody else's." 

He then amends his statement slightly, "Anyone who's ever seen my work, and I've had a lot of people see my work, they love it. I've never had anyone, ever, say that it was too much or react homophobicly. Never have I run across in all my years of shooting. And I always expected it to happen at some point in time. I don't know if it's the images, or the style, but the straightest people can come up and look at my work and just go on and look at every picture. They may not say anything but they certainly don't criticize it. For 99 percent of the time, it's very positive. I've got family that lives below me and she can't get enough of it."

Perhaps its that emphasis on personality, the boys in their underwear, or out of it, fill Taking It Off and Lozon's oeuvre with a cheeky playful life force. Like Dion and Gaga, like the fab magazine cover boys, they are having fun, trusting that Lozon will make them look like the idealized versions of themselves that they are in their heads. Turn them into art. "It has to say something or what's the point?," says Lozon. "Otherwise you just walk out of the room with a blank look on your face."