Madonna Tribe Year End Review: American Life – The McDean Photo Shoot

Another minor controversy surrounded the photo shoot for the cover, inner artwork and promotional photos for the album American Life, that Madonna did with acclaimed photographer Craig McDean

Craig McDean too expensive for Warner Bros – 02/17/2003 Reps for Madonna deny talk that she clashed with Warner Bros. Records chief Tom Whalley, after sending the label an astronomical bill for a photo session Craig McDean did for her new CD. “Whalley sent word back to Madonna that he wasn’t paying the bill,” says the source, since his boss, Warner Music Group CEO Roger Ames, recently told all his label heads to trim expenses. “So she called Ames, reminding him of how many records she sold. Ames called Whalley to ask him to make an exception for Madonna. But Whalley wouldn’t budge. Things have gotten very tense.” Madonna’s rep, Liz Rosenberg denies Whalley and Ames spoke about the bill. “Tom Whalley doesn’t get involved in that area of the company,” said Rosenberg, who did confirm that McDean’s bill for the photo session ran over $100,000.

Source: NY Daily News

Reps deny fall-out between Madonna and Craig McDean, 06/13/2003Rumour swirled this week about a conflict between Madonna and Craig McDean, the cutting-edge fashion photographer she hired to shoot the cover of her latest album “American Life.”
Previous stories focused on the allegedly astronomical expense of the shoot, but the new scuttlebutt says McDean had paid all his own expenses for the privilege of working with the pop diva only to have her turn up her nose at the finished product; she supposedly ended up cobbling something together from the few passable images on her own.However, both McDean’s and Madonna’s reps insist everything is A-OK.
“For some reason a number of things are being said about the shoot, but it’s absolutely not true,” says Anne Kennedy, McDean’s powerhouse agent at Art + Commerce. “We’ve worked with them a lot and never really had any major dramas.”

Madonna’s rep, Liz Rosenberg, was more vocal: “This smells of an evil queen trying to trash Craig McDean and Madonna,”
she told Fashion Buzz.

“For one thing, the record company always pays the photographer’s expenses,” she insists. “And Madonna loved the artwork. She had many meetings with Craig and he was her first choice. They worked together before on a Vanity Fair shoot and everything was completely harmonious and fine.”
For the “American Life” session, Rosenberg notes, “There was kind of Patty Hearst/Che Guevara thing going on, reflecting Madonna’s philosophy of being a rebel.”

Now, however, the pop chameleon is about to switch gears and go glam for the release of her new video, “Hollywood,” shot by another fashion snapper, Jean-Baptiste Mondino. “She’s in an ultra-glamour phase for ‘Hollywood, ” Rosenberg says, noting with a laugh: “The transformations are coming very fast now.”

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Source: New York Post