With the click of her camera, Deborah Feingold has proven time and again that she is an expert at capturing a person's soul and humanity.
“Gorgeous! Gorgeous!” says Feingold, as she snaps lots of pictures during a photo shoot in SoHo.
Among her most famous works are photographs of Madonna, former President Barack Obama, and Keith Richards. Many consider her images iconic.
And now Feingold, who is usually behind the camera, finds herself on the other side of the lens — and gaining national exposure — as part of a six-part series that airs Fridays on PBS.
The program, called “Icon: Music Through the Lens,” invites viewers into the untold world of music photography.
“Meeting jazz musicians changed my life,” Feingold says.
When Feingold was in her 20s and living in Massachusetts, she fell in love with a jazz musician and took lots of pictures.
She says learning how to photograph jazz musicians proved to be instrumental to her success.
“It was about being sensitive to who you’re with,” she says, “and what’s going on, and being in the present and that influenced my work more than anything, and still does.”
After moving to New York City in late 1970s, Feingold’s hard work and hustle eventually led to plum jobs taking photos for the Village Voice, Musician Magazine and Rolling Stone.
Feingold says while she never experienced sexism on the job, the road to the perfect shot often presented challenges.
One photo of James Brown hangs in her Stuyvesant Town apartment and is one of her favorites, but taking it wasn't easy.
"In this particular instance, I was only allowed to photograph him while he was talking or taking a breath. I couldn’t interrupt!" she admits.
In the docu-series, Feingold shares the story of how she got a young Madonna to pose with a lollipop.
But one story that she is sharing exclusively with NY1 brought us to SoHo, where Feingold had a photography studio for five years.
"I was on the 4th floor,” Feingold remembers. “Studio went all the way to Broome Street.”
Feingold tells NY1, after her official shoot with Cyndi Lauper had wrapped up inside that studio, their combined artistry led to an image that they both love.
"I felt like I didn't get anything that was really authentic, who she was,” Feingold says. “So at the end of our shoot, as I sometimes would do, I said, ‘Could you just put on what you came to the studio in, and let me take a few shots of you outside.’ She said yes. So this is just outside the studio, and I do love this shot,” Feingold says, pointing to yet another iconic image.