	Art Photos
	Candids
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	The Ottawa Citizen
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To inquire about licensing or purchasing prints of my photos,
or to commission services please contact: lois@siegelproductions.ca

EMC
Ottawa West
February 13, 2009
West end photography show features
movie stars, famous faces
By Rosalyn Stevens

East Ottawa Star
February 6, 2009

Photographer shines with ‘Stars’

by Laura Cummings

Lois Siegel
Canadian Women's Open
Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club

Photo by Ron Levine
Prisoners of Age

One of the biggest differences between photographing regular subjects and celebrities
– as long-time, Orléans-based photographer Lois Siegel tells it
– really just comes down to the level of chaos.

Shooting screen siren Sophia Loren at the Montreal World Film Festival press conference several years ago
“was kind of a zoo shoot,” she recounts. “I was first in line … but I sort of got pushed out of the way.
It was push and shove the whole time – it’s a danger zone sometimes.”

Actor Robert De Niro was another celebrity whose portrait
didn’t come without some frustration, Siegel continues.

With a public appearance planned at a Montreal shopping centre, “everyone in Montreal was there,” she explains.
“There were like 5,000 people. But when the press conference was about to start, De Niro was still in New York City.”

Though he arrived before pandemonium broke out,
it wasn’t before some panic from local media and fellow photographers, she adds with a laugh.

Looking back over her long history of shooting celebrities, Siegel – who fell into photography while studying journalism at Ohio University,
launching a career that’s spanned decades and different cities
– is currently exhibiting 50 portraits of her famous subjects in a show simply titled Stars.

It’s a litany of names including a young Howie Mandel, Leonard Cohen, Clint Eastwood, Hugh Grant, Ben Kingsley,
Dizzy Gillespie, Ralph Nader, Sting and Pierre Trudeau. Gigs like photographing the Montreal World Film Festival
have helped get her close to many of the actors and directors – including Loren – featured in the exhibit,
she recounts, though “hanging around jazz clubs shooting all the musicians”
and working Montreal parties has also led to many of the displayed portraits.

“It’s fun when you spend more time with the people,” Siegel continues,
adding that press junkets and other promotional events
don’t allow for much interaction between photographer and subject.

Holding 'Stars' at the Westboro Ottawa Bagelshop and Deli has proved to be the perfect location
– “it’s like a Hollywood deli, with all the pictures with autographs on the walls,” she says,
explaining how each photograph is accompanied by a plaque
detailing the story of where and how it was taken. “People love looking at pictures of celebrities.
And the stories just makes it so much more interesting.”

Vince Piazza, owner of the Ottawa Bagelshop, explains his store has been providing an outlet
to support local artists for the past 13 years, typically switching exhibits every five weeks.

"It's a win-win situation; I like to promote artists," he says,
adding that customers also enjoy perusing the work,
making their visit to the business more interesting.
"It's like an art museum in here."
________________

Hard Hat Lady
Construction Site
Photographing the Hoisting of the Sign
at the New Shenkman Arts Centre
Orleans

The Shenkman Arts Centre
Orleans

©Photo by Lois Siegel
2008

-17 C

Feels like -28

The A-Channel TV Guy's Record Button Froze

Steel-Toed Boots (not pictured)

_______________

Ottawa Chinatown Royal Arch

©Photo by Lois Siegel
July 2010

©Photo by Mike Levin
2010

Photo by Jason Ransom
Stephen Harper's Official Photographer

Norwegian Ambassador Tor Berntin Naess Meets
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

"In the Street"
Candid Photography
by Lois Siegel

Ottawa Public Library
Main Branch
120 Metcalfe St. & Laurier

November 2009

2nd Floor Mezzanine
Take the stairs
leading up to the 2nd floor

©Photo by Lois Siegel

Contact: Lois Siegel
(613) 830-2509

Lois Siegel has just been invited to display her photographs
on the Saatchi Gallery, London, England, website

You can view her work here:
Saatchi Gallery

Wikipedia

Les Violons du Roy
Film directed by Don Winkler, produced by Craig Graham
Premiere CBC "Opening Night" Series
Thursday, April 5,2007
9 p.m.
Photos by Lois Siegel

Cover Photo by Lois Siegel
St. Andrew's Review
North Carolina, USA
November 2006

Northernstars.ca

Siegel on Display
by Staff

(January 22, 2009 – Ottawa, Ontario) -- Longtime contributor to Northernstars, Ottawa-based director and photographer Lois Siegel is having a display of some of her remarkable star shots. Simply titled "Stars," the show will take place at an Ottawa

eatery known as much for its support of local artists as it is for its food, The Ottawa Bagelshop and Deli on Wellington Street.

Siegel first came to Canada to attend French Summer School at McGill University in 1968. She returned again in the summers of 1969, 1970 and 1971 when she made the decision to stay in Montreal. She began her filmmaking career there, a career that includes Stunt People. Produced in 1989 the film about a whole family that gets into the movie stunt business won a 1990 Genie Award.

This exhibit will contain 50 of Siegel's photographs, each measuring 16-by-20 inches. They include some of the most famous names in entertainment, including this starkly beautiful shot of Sofia Loren.

©Photo by Tom Robertson

©Photo by Lois Siegel

©Photo by Lois Siegel

Cierra Campeau
Jazz Singer

northernstars.ca

©Photo by Lois Siegel

Siegel won 1^st Prize: “Photography” at the 23rd Annual Art East Art & Photo Exhibition
Orleans, Ontario (2004) for her portrait of “The Crowd” trumpeter Adam Bell

Scripps alumna named to Ottawa’s Top 50
(Type: Lois Siegel under "Search")

The Now EMC

Orléans resident enjoys success
in filmmaking and photography
By Nick Bergamini
Thursday, March 6, 2008

The Rolling Stones
World Tour
August

Press Conference

Concert

©Photo by Steve Coleman

Orleans photographer
gets assignment of a lifetime
By Steve Coleman, Neighbourhood News Staff
Fri, Sep 2, 2005 2:00 PM EST

Ottawa
Business Journal

An Orleans resident won the lottery last weekend. For a photographer, the prize was better than money - even though "Under My Thumb" could have been the night's unofficial theme song.

Lois Siegel was one of only nine photographers standing between the crowd and the front of the stage Aug. 28 when the Rolling Stones played for more than 40,000 delirious fans at Frank Clair Stadium.

"I brought earplugs," said Siegel. "I made friends with a lot of the other photographers there."

The job was with the Glebe Report, a community newspaper covering the area around Lansdowne Park. With 4 a.m. sound checks at full volume, Super Ex might have been looking to mend a few fences with neighbours, she said.

Armed with a new camera after the switch from 35 mm film to digital, the concert was a learning experience, she said. Even though she's been shooting for years.

"All of the photographers were guys," she said. "I was the only girl there and they had all of the expensive equipment."

While she said she's shot nightclub shows and festivals in the past, including acts like Johnny Winter, Dizzy Gillespie and the Juno Awards ceremony in Montreal, the weekend gig at Bank Street was the first major concert she said she has done. The band made sure it had the final say in who took the pictures, too.

Photographers at the show had a long list of restrictions and had to sign a waiver in case something went wrong while they were on the job. And for people at the concert wondering why the first two songs the Rolling Stones played were lit with white stage lights, it was all of the time the small group of photographers at the front of the stage had to get their shots.

"I'm learning every time I shoot," she said. "All we had was 10 minutes."

She said she squeezed 137 pictures into her camera in eight minutes.

Band management kept a tight rein on the camera crowd in other ways too. One of the things they had to agree to before they were herded out was to follow directions on what they could and couldn't shoot - like the audience.

The hurry-up-and-wait routine continued into the final few minutes before the show. Photographers working the night of the show were invited Saturday's press conference to get shots of the stage. They sat around for an hour waiting to get the OK to drag out their gear.

Whether or not it was planned, security guards knew all of the faces the night of the show. And to keep anything untoward from getting out, photojournalists shooting that night's concert were under strict instructions to keep their lenses pointed at the ground when backstage among the band trailers.

Stones front man Mick Jagger likes to go for a run before just before a show to get himself warmed up.

"The rules didn't bother me," Siegel said. "I didn't want to get kicked out. How many people get to shoot the Rolling Stones?"

She said she didn't notice which songs the band played at the start of the show and it wasn't because of the earplugs. Getting into the zone tuned her out of the show.

©Photo by Lois Siegel

Siegel won 1^st Prize in the category “Photography” at the
23rd Annual Art East Art & Photo Exhibition
Orleans, Ontario (2004) for her portrait of “The Crowd” trumpeter Adam Bell

Her photography is listed in Mayworks: Ottawa’s first Visual Artists Directory.
Honorary Photographer for the 2005, 2006 Arts Ottawa East "Luncheon for the Arts.

by Michael Spencer with Suzan Ayscough
Photographs by Lois Siegel
Cantos International Publishing
Review by James Forrester

Hollywood North: the Creation of the Canadian Film Industry is the unvarnished story of the development and evolution of a cultural industry that began with a two-page memo to Cabinet in 1965 and grew into a $3 billion industry. This complete and revealing reference work is liberally spiced with tales that have never been told and illustrated with photographs that recall the playful infancy of Canadian cinema.

©Photo by Lois Siegel
Justin Time Records Inc.
Montreal

©Photo by Lois Siegel
Troy MacGillivray

©Photo by Lois Siegel

©Photo by Lois Siegel
"Inspired"
Alexis MacIsaac

Stars
Photography by Lois Siegel
120 Photos

Montreal World Film Festival
Complexe Desjardins
2002

The Ottawa Citizen

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Soul Catcher
by Paul Gessell
Lois Siegel has been photographing musicians for years,
but they're often camera-shy, she tells Paul Gessell

CREDIT: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen

An exhibition of Lois Siegel's favourite photographs of musicians opens July 22, 2004 at the Ottawa Folklore Centre.

Jazz diva Esther Phillips was "difficult."

So was k.d. lang. Fiddler Ashley MacIsaac was, at least back in 1996, "naive" and Sting was, well, a bit of a surprise.

Lois Siegel saw a pack of photographers chasing someone in 1982 and, without knowing who the quarry was, the intrepid Ottawa photographer joined the race. The prize: A great shot of an amazingly relaxed-looking Sting.

Siegel has been photographing the rich, famous and musical for two decades. She has captured anybody who was ever anybody at the Montreal World Film Festival. For years she haunted all the legendary jazz and blues clubs in Montreal, including Spectrum, Biddles and Rising Sun, to spy on musicians making love to their instruments.

Siegel's collection includes many fiddlers. She's one herself and spends quality time with various performing outfits, including the Lyon Street Celtic Band. Sometimes she shows up at festivals, concerts, hoedowns and fiddling competitions as the official photographer for such magazines as Cinema Canada or Downbeat.

Sometimes she just shows up, her camera hidden from bouncers. Being short and with the innocent face of a child, no one would ever guess Siegel is something of a sneaky whirling dervish stealing the souls of celebrities.

Musicians are increasingly wary of photographers, Siegel says during a recent interview in her Orleans home. Even the most laid-back bluesman can get cranky when someone, anyone, tries to get close with a camera during a concert. So, don't expect to see Siegel prowling around this week's Bluesfest. Anyway, if any of the Bluesfest artists are really, really noteworthy, chances are Siegel has already shot them some place else and hung their pictures on the wall of her home (the best photo gallery in town), alongside Sophia Loren, Nicolas Cage, Jackie Chan and other favourites of the paparazzi.

An exhibition of musician photos by Siegel opens July 22 at the Ottawa Folklore Centre at Bank and Sunnyside.

Siegel was hoping to show about 30 of her favourite musicians' shots.

The musicians she's eyeing for the show cover everything from jazz to the classics. The photos are a mixture of the candid and the posed.

Here are some of the contenders for the exhibition, simply titled Musicians: Charlie Biddle (in his photo, he looks ready to tango into bliss with his bass), classical violinist Ida Haendel, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, fiddler Natalie McMaster (her photo shows her soaring, surely, to another planet), Nova Scotia bluesman Dutch Mason, aboriginal warbler Buffy Sainte-Marie and American singer Johnny Winter ("I met him when I made a film about albinos.")

Siegel is also a filmmaker. She teaches video production at the University of Ottawa. Her own film credits include such documentaries as Lip Gloss, Baseball Girls, the Genie-winning Stunt Family and the aforementioned look at albinism, Strangers in Town.

While some musicians, actors and others are thrilled to have Siegel photograph them, others are leery, nervous and just plain stand-offish. So, how does she get those types to relax and pose for her?

"Talk to them. Smile. Don't look like you're going to eat them alive."

Musicians will be performing, in the visual sense, at the Ottawa Folklore Centre, 1111 Bank St., from July 22 to Aug. 26. For more information on the exhibition, phone 730-2887.

Orléans shutterbug captures history of Canadian film
September 8, 2003

Hollywood Deli North

James Woods and Nicholas Cage
American Actors
1984
Ottawa Bagelshop and Deli
1321 Wellington St.
Ottawa, Ontario
Phone: 722-8753
July 25,2009 - January 4, 2010

Lois Siegel's Home Page