Herb Ritts
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Herb Ritts (August 13, 1952 – December 26, 2002) was an American fashion photographer who concentrated on black-and-white photography and portraits in the style of classical Greek sculpture. Consequently some of his more famous pieces are of male and female nudes in what can be called glamour photography.
He was born in Los Angeles, California to a prosperous family who owned a furniture business.
In 1974 he received an economics degree from Bard College in upstate New York and soon after returned to Los Angeles to work as a sales representative for his family's business.
However, Ritts started taking night classes in photography and decided to dedicate himself to the art in the late 1970s. His first break into the business occurred as a result of taking portraits of his actor friend Richard Gere. These photos gained national exposure on the covers of many magazines.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he worked with magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue on portraits of famous people and artistic photos of models.
Subjects of his black-and-white celebrity portraits included Kofi Annan, Cindy Crawford, Tenzin Gyatso (the Dalai Lama), Madonna, Jack Nicholson and Elizabeth Taylor.
In 1981, Ritts took photos for the album cover of Olivia Newton-John's Physical.
Ritts started his long term collaboration with Madonna in 1984, when he shot the ad for her movie Desperately Seeking Susan.
In 1986, Ritts shot the cover photo of Madonna's True Blue album. He later ventured into the world of music video at a suggestion of Madonna and filmed her video "Cherish". In 1989 he photographed Belinda Carlisle for her "Runaway Horses"album.
Ritts proved himself to be successful in directing music videos. In 1991 two of these, Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" and Janet Jackson's "Love Will Never Do (Without You)", won MTV Video Music Awards.
He also directed the video for Mariah Carey's "My All", Britney Spears' "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know", Shakira's "Underneath Your Clothes" and Jennifer Lopez's "Ain't It Funny", the latter shortly before his death.
He was also responsible for setting up the relationship between the late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence and Supermodel Helena Christensen as noted by Michael himself, of the now infamous Big Breakfast interview with Paula Yates
He died in Los Angeles from pneumonia-related complications. Reports state that he was HIV-positive. However, that was not the cause of his death. He leaves his partner Erik Hyman.
Ritts' final published photographs were those of actor Ben Affleck in Vanity Fair magazine.
See also: The erotic male in photography
