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"Doggie Style":
An Interview with Wegman Photographic Assistant, Michael Lee

Photographer William Wegman first gained national attention in the late 1970s with a series of portraits featuring an unlikely subject: his pet weimaraner, Man Ray. The photographs were exhibited in museums and public spaces throughout the country, and published in several popular volumes. By 1981, when Wegman’s short films about Man Ray appeared on Saturday Night Live, the dog and his owner were firmly established in American popular cultural.

For most of the past twenty-five years, Wegman worked with one studio assistant, Michael Lee, who prepared the animals for each photo session while Wegman concentrated on the technical aspects of the shoot. Lee described the process of working with Wegman in a May 2002 interview with writer Alain Bechloss, reprinted here with permission from Independent Photographer magazine.

Bechloss: How did your collaboration with Mr. Wegman begin?

Lee: It was a meeting of the minds, really. At the time, I was doing performance pieces, mostly in SoHo -- very edgy, very apres mode. And I had my one-man show, "Mommy, It's Me." I did collage…

So you met in the theater scene?

No, actually I was also working at The Pet Set. We sold toys for dogs and whatnot. Wegs used to bring his dog in all the time, Man Ray, and we hit it off. He'd come in, and I'd just drop whatever I was doing and scratch his belly…

You mean the dog…?

… and finally he was so busy he needed an assistant. He knew I was an artist. So…

When did his pet dogs become the focus of Wegman's work?

Oh, well, Man Ray was the first one, around '79, I guess. You know, at the time Wegs was mostly doing still lifes -- like slices of salami on a plate, uh, close-ups of a chain-link fence, that kind of thing. Not really making a living, obviously. But anyway, the dog was always trying to get in the picture, so one day Wegs says, ‘You wanna be in the picture? You wanna be in the picture? Who wants to be in the picture? Who does?’ You know. So we did the blue and red. Painted the dog blue and put him on a red background, then the other way. Red paint and a blue background. And he loved it.

The dog loved it.

Yeah, the dog, Man Ray. And people say, that's cruel, painting the dog, and pouring flour on his head and all. But we figured, if the dog doesn't care, what the hell? It's money in the bank. There's only so many lettuce burritos a guy can eat before you say fuck this.

Lettuce burritos…?

Like one day, Wegs is kind of down on funds, and he's thinking, and he says, go down to the Yarn Barn and get whatever's cheap. Okay, I go down, come back with purple yarn. He says, wrap the dog up, so I do. Wrapped the dog from head to tail. I'm telling you, he loved it…

Are there other Man Ray photographs that were special to you? How about ‘Man Ray and Mrs. Lubner in Bed’?

Two dogs in bed. Seems like a cute set-up, right? Truth is, we found them in bed like that, watching TV. Not much of a story.

Eventually you and Mr. Wegman began working with another weimaraner, Fay Raye, when Man Ray was no longer in the picture…

He died, yes. Very sad, both for Wegs and me. A very warm personality. Warm until he was cold, if you get me.

So Fay Raye became the subject of Mr. Wegman's pictures.

Yeah, maybe it's that breed. They don't care what you do to them! And by that time we knew we had a good thing. Wegs was raking it in with the dog thing, and he started shooting only dogs. That's all he shot. Two dogs, three dogs. Dogs in combinations. One with a red face next to one with a yellow face, and uh, a blue face next to, uh, a yellow face…

Did the complaints about cruelty to animals continue to be an issue, even as Wegman became famous?

Face paint is nothing! I put that on my kid.

But weren't some of the dogs spray-painted…?

Whatever! Look, everybody does weird stuff with their pets. Everybody. We just found a way to do stuff to the dogs and make a shitload… No, listen. It's an artistic thing, though. It’s artistic expression. With the dogs and all.

Well, the later work seems to be less…taxing on the animals. Most of Wegman's work over the past ten years is photographs of dogs in dresses.

Which is why I'm back to waiting tables. It's better! It's better than having to do a fitting for a dog. Dogs don't sit still for that. They squirm and whine. They take a shit, sometimes. I said, Wegs, we've done this to death. Let's glue the dogs to the ceiling, like we used to. He says, don't quit, don't quit. He says, I'm gonna be on Letterman and you can hang out in the greenroom with Crocodile Dundee. So that was kind of my swan song with Wegs.

What happened on the Letterman show?

Well, the dogs just freaked out. They ran around Letterman's desk, one of them tried to hide under a chair, but she couldn't fit. Then they just walked out, the dogs. I said, Fuckin’ A! The dogs don't give a shit about being famous! They don't give a rat’s crack about celebrity. And, I says to myself, neither do I.