Eugene Adebari's work instantly touches an emotional chord in you in the same way that the very best of photographic portrait work does. It has a very special quality of intimacy and intensity that could be expressed as a contradiction in terms - 'hard-hitting sensitivity'. It is dependent on an enviable level of trust he has earned from his subjects, portraying them in a thoughtful and intimate fashion. Brandt could. Bailey and Liebovitz can.
Largely self-taught, having joined the internationally renowned agency Rex at the age of 16 as a tea boy, Eugene developed his career in the classic fashion from the ground up.
For his first shoot, Adebari was commissioned to photograph Marvin Gaye in Los Angeles, which led directly to a portrait session with Michael Jackson during the Billie Jean campaign and he has never looked back.
Eugene went on to photograph major music events, including Live Aid and many of the world's most successful, prolific and famous artists. His informal yet intimate approach to portraiture led to him to being specially commissioned by performers such as Madonna, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, INXS and Michael Jackson to spend time documenting their travels on the road with unprecedented access. His works have appeared in hundreds of publications worldwide, including Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, NME, Vogue, GQ, Spin, US, Sunday Times Magazine, Q, Elle and CNN. Eugene's work also encompassed film and he visited film sets as a 'specials' photographer, documenting the making of movies and shooting images for film posters. He was currently working on a major project shooting in Kerala in India.
"I've had the fantastic opportunity and good fortune to photograph some of the most talented and interesting personalities and have often been lucky enough to have the access to capture them in unusual, informal and casual situations".
Eugene Adebari 1960 - 2008
