Joni Mitchell   

Joni Mitchell by Baron Wollman 1969

FROM BOTH SIDES now, the subject's and the photographer's, recollections of these dramatic black-and-white portraits - one of which was used for a 1969 Joni Mitchell cover story - are vague. "That I don't remember," Mitchell says today. "I've seen it, and it's interesting, but I don't remember where it was. The eye has a bit of odd vulnerability. It is not quite haunted, but there's a bit of that poignancy there."

"I feel the same way," says Baron Wolman. "I just remember it was up at her home in Laurel Canyon - I think. I did a color and black-and-white session. She was just very hospitable. Some people just want you out of there, you know. I remember we were sitting at a table, and I was using natural light. She had this really beautiful pink silk or silk-like blouse on. It was almost Edwardian - if it were a guy wearing it they would say it was Edwardian. She had a very expressive face and really nice long blond hair in those days."

Today Mitchell says she was fairly oblivious to the fact that such images were making her an icon of the era, a folkie dream woman. "I think the only awareness that I had of it, perhaps, was from the ribbing," she says. "Like, David Crosby used to call me the Love Bandit, but that was it."

"Norman always wanted to get me wet," Joni Mitchell says of this Norman Seeff shoot, outtakes of which accompanied a harsh "Rolling Stone" review of "The Hissing of Summer Lawns." "It was that wet-T-shirt kind of time, I believe, so I thought, 'OK.' There were a lot of swimming pool images on the album, but I know the pool photos were offensive to fans. There was a prevailing attitude that I'd sold out, that I was showing off. The whole illustrative quality of what it was about was kind of missed."

The mood at the session apparently wasn't as sunny as this photograph suggests. "It's at my house," Mitchell recalls. "I think that's the first session that we did out of Norman's studio. The best way to work with Norman was to have an idea, because if you didn't, he was very psychological - most people never went to him twice, you know. He's got a whole film of every celebrity crying. The only way you could work with him was to have ideas up your sleeve and seduce him with play." Seeff explains that "Joni and I would kind of battle our way through it in a very positive way. There was always that very intense interaction with artists." As for this shot, Seeff says, "I thought it was a very powerful cocreation between the two of us. It was a rather sensuous - not sensual, but a sensuous shoot. To me they were just beautiful images, rather that trying to go for the very indepth personality type of stuff." For the record, Seeff passes along word that Mitchell was "a very good swimmer."

"I haven't used the pool for a while," Mitchell says. "I guess when my daughter comes, we go in. It costs a lot to heat it."