The portrait
She is sitting on a cream couch in a dark, empty nightclub, knees together, feet apart, exactly as I told her. Platinum blonde bob with bangs. Oversized black sunglasses. A black blazer-cut dress, black leather gloves, strappy heels, her legs doubled in a glossy reflection on the mirrored floor. The look is pure pop star. She just was not one yet.
Look closer and the frame tells you everything about that night. The club is empty, the lights are low, and there is no audience, no entourage, no publicist hovering. It is just her and the camera, and she is giving it everything. The sunglasses do the heavy lifting: they turn a 22-year-old unknown into a mystery. The blonde hair against the black dress, the gloves, the posture she held because I asked her to, all of it reads as someone who already knows exactly who she is. Most people need fame to look like this. She showed up looking like this before anyone knew her name.
This is the first Portrait of the Week, a series where I open my archive and tell the true story behind one frame. We start in 2007, with an artist nobody had heard of, in a club with nobody watching.
The story behind the shoot
In 2007 I was shooting and writing for TDINK, my online magazine. A Universal Music publicist contacted me about an unknown artist and told me, flat out, that she would be the next Madonna. The publicist told me to meet her at Area Nightclub in West Hollywood.
I interviewed her for about ten minutes before we shot. I asked what kind of music she did. Pop, she said. I asked if it was pop like Britney Spears. She told me she did her own version of pop, blended with a lot of European techno. Then we did the shoot, just the two of us, alone in the club. Not even a publicist was there. Nobody took a picture of us together, so I have no photo from that night with both of us in it.
I told her to sit on the couch, knees together, feet apart. I told her to put her sunglasses on to contrast with her blonde hair. She wore a black Stella McCartney dress and a pink Chanel scarf. That was the whole direction. That was the whole crew.
Even then, she was fully formed. She told me her name came from the Queen song "Radio GaGa," given to her by her producer Rob Fusari because she was so theatrical. She called herself the do-it-yourself pop artist: she wrote the music, designed the clothing, designed the stage. "Its completely 150 thousand percent my vision," she said. Her influences were David Bowie, Madonna, Talking Heads, Duran Duran, Elvis, the Beatles. Her first single, "Just Dance," was about to come out.
Twelve years later, I got to tell her what it became. My good friend Vaja took me to the Grammys in 2018. Gaga won three Grammys that night, and Vaja got a call from Dawn Miller inviting us to the Valley for Gaga and Mark Ronson's party at Oil Can Harry's, a dive bar. Adele was dancing, the crowd was electric, and Gaga was onstage dancing up a storm. I went up, reintroduced myself, and told her I had done one of her first photoshoots at Area Nightclub. She was sweet about it and asked when. I said 2007. She said, "Wow."
I showed her the portrait on my phone and congratulated her on everything. I told her she inspired me. Then we danced together onstage for a good ten minutes. Nobody was taking pictures, which reminded me of Area all those years before. It was a time before social media. All these years later, I still don't have a picture with her. I have the memories, and I have this portrait.
The interview: ten minutes that predicted everything
The shoot lasted minutes. The interview lasted ten. Looking back, the interview is the remarkable part, because every answer she gave in 2007 turned out to be true.
She was 22. She told me she learned piano by ear at age 3, wrote her first ballad at 13, attended Sacred Heart School by day and played open mic nights around Manhattan by night, and at 17 became one of 20 kids admitted to NYU, where she planned to major in theatre. None of that was famous yet. It was just her resume.
Her fashion sense, in her words: "very fashion forward, very future thinking." Futuristic, Italian, couture meets the casino. Her favorite designers were Matt Williams, Armani, Gucci, Chanel. She had just signed to Interscope, and when I asked how life had changed, she said not much, except now more people knew her music. "I was playing for 40 people before and now its 40,000," she said. Then the line I still think about: "You really don't get recognition until you're ready."
She was ready. Ask her what a typical day looked like and she said: "I wake up at 8 and then I have a panic attack on what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the day." Then coffee, then nothing typical. A plane, a performance, whatever the day demanded. That is not a person waiting to be discovered. That is a person already operating at full capacity, just waiting for the world to catch up.
Ask her what the Interscope deal changed and she shrugged it off. "I'm really in it for the music," she said. "It's not about money, it's about creativity and inspiring people and myself and being new." A label, in her view, could only get you so far. The work had to be strong enough on its own. Coming from a 22-year-old with one single about to drop, that is either delusion or prophecy. It was prophecy.
The technical takeaway
For photographers, the lesson is direction economy. One pose. One styling contrast. Then shoot.
I did not overdirect her because there was nothing to overdirect. The pose was one sentence: couch, knees together, feet apart. The styling choice was one idea: sunglasses against the blonde hair. When you are alone with a subject, no crew, no publicist, no audience, decisiveness is the whole lighting package. The subject reads your confidence and gives you theirs back. Overdirection in a quiet room kills a portrait faster than bad light. Say the frame once, clearly, and let the person fill it.
There is a second lesson, and it is the reason this portrait exists at all: photograph people before they are famous, and treat them like they already are. I gave an unknown 22-year-old the same direct, confident direction I would give a headliner, because the publicist said she would be the next Madonna and I believed it. That belief is visible in the frame. Subjects rise to the seriousness you bring. If I had treated her like a nobody, I would have gotten a nobody's portrait.
That discipline is why I still trust small rooms and minimal setups after 27 years as a celebrity photographer in Los Angeles and New York. The camera I had that night mattered far less than the fact that she believed I knew the shot. When the moment comes, be the calmest person in the room.
FAQs
When did David Christopher Lee photograph Lady Gaga? In 2007, at Area Nightclub in West Hollywood, for my online magazine TDINK. A Universal Music publicist arranged the shoot and told me she would be the next Madonna.
How did Lady Gaga get her name? From the Queen song "Radio GaGa." Her producer Rob Fusari gave it to her because she was so theatrical, always doing theatrical things at the piano.
What was Lady Gaga like before she was famous? Fully formed. In our ten-minute interview she already described herself as a do-it-yourself pop artist who wrote her own music and designed her own clothes and stage. Her debut single "Just Dance" was about to come out.
What was she wearing for the shoot? A black Stella McCartney dress, a pink Chanel scarf, black leather gloves, and oversized black sunglasses I asked her to put on to contrast with her blonde hair.
Did you ever see her again? Yes. In 2018, at the Grammys afterparty at Oil Can Harry's, I reintroduced myself, showed her the portrait on my phone, and we danced onstage together for ten minutes.
How do I book a portrait session? Get in touch here and tell me about the shoot. I photograph celebrities, executives, and anyone who needs a portrait with presence, in Los Angeles and New York.
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