Mark Seliger is an American photographer noted for his portraiture.
He was born in Amarillo Texas in 1959, where he lived with his parents, Maurice and Carol Lee, and his two older brothers and younger sister, until 1964, when they moved to Houston.
Seliger's early interest in photography began when his brother Frank promised to give him his Diana camera if he got a base hit in Little League. He didn't get the hit, but he got on base (by getting a walk for getting hit in the shoulder with the ball), and the camera was his.
His first love quickly became the darkroom where he began experimenting with printing and developing in the family’s bathroom.
He attended Houston’s High School for Performing & Visual Arts and, from there,went on to attend East Texas State University, where his education began in earnest, as he studied the history of documentary photography.
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He moved to New York City in 1984. He began working for Rolling Stone in 1987, and served as its chief photographer from 1992 to 2002 and shot over 125 covers for the magazine. He also began a long term collaborative relationship with Design Director, Fred Woodward, which continues to this day. They have co-directed numerous music videos for artists such as Willie Nelson, Lenny Kravitz and Elvis Costello.
Mark Seliger currently collaborates with numerous publications such as Vanity Fair, Italian Vogue, Rolling Stone, Harper's Bazaar, GQ, German Vogue , Spanish Vogue.
A partial commercial client list includes Ralp Lauren, St. John, Diesel, Macy's, Rocawear, Capitol Records, Showtime, HBO, Sony Music, The Gap, MTV, Universal Pictures, Pepsi, Smartwater, The Sundance Channel, American Express.
Seliger has also published several books; created a number of CD covers for Burning Spear, Diana Krall and other bands and directed short films.
The celebrities whose portraits Seliger has made include Susan Sarandon, David Byrne, Matthew Barney, Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Kurt Cobain, Rob Thomas and Tony Bennett.
Seliger’s photographs have won countless awards, from such esteemed awardscommittees as The Society of Publication Designers, The Alfred Eisenstaedt A ward,Communication Arts, American Photography, and Photo District News.
