Musée Magazine Issue No. 20 - Motion | Page 29

NORM CLASEN
h o r sing a ro und
ANDREA BLANCH: Norm, can you tell me how you started in photography?
NORM CLASEN: Yes, it was kind of an around-the-clock type of thing. I had a little ad agency in
Aspen. I could never quite get the photos that I wanted, and so one day I decided to just do it myself.
I picked up a camera and started taking pictures, and realized I really enjoyed doing it and that I
was pretty good at it. That’s really how I got my training. Next thing I knew, I was asked to provide
photographs for magazines. They wanted ski photographs, so I started doing that. One thing led to
another and I just sort of evolved into it. One day an agent for Larry Dale Gordon gave me a call ask-
ing if I could scout a location for them for Marlboro to do a Christmas shoot. My old standing joke
is that my arm went up so fast I dislocated my shoulder. I said yes of course, and my first test shoot
was an absolute disaster.
ANDREA: What else were you shooting? Or did you only focus on this work?
NORM: Well, I had to make a decision, whether or not I wanted to give up the agency and really focus
on my photography. I had come about this in a very fortuitous way, and I realized I couldn’t do both.
If Leo Burnett called me and said, “I want you in Montana next Wednesday morning. The crew will
be there on Tuesday,” then you were there. If you were in the middle of a deadline with an ad agency
situation, you couldn’t do both. I sold the agency, focused on photography full-time and did work for
them. I did a lot of fashion around here, and I worked for United Airlines for a while; that was another
Leo Burnett account. I mean, you don’t work for Marlboro all day everyday, but you have to be there
when they call you. It was kind of a delicate balance, but it certainly worked out well.
Portrait and all images ©Norm Clasen
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