Lee Tanner, Jazz Performance Portraitist, Is Dead at 82 Lee Tanner, a jazz photographer whose evocative and sometimes ethereal images of Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and others helped define the genre visually on scores of album covers and in magazines, exhibitions and books, died on Sept. 7 in San Andreas, Calif. Lisa Tanner Lee Tanner's evocative and sometimes ethereal images helped define jazz visually on scores of album covers and in magazines, exhibitions and books. Lee Tanner Mr. Tanner's work was included in multi-photographer collections like the Gillespie anthology "Dizzy." One of his most famous pictures is a close-up of Duke Ellington that he had cropped and enlarged from an image of Ellington at the piano. Mr. Tanner's photo of Chet Baker, who has been called "the James Dean of jazz." His death was confirmed by his daughter Lisa Tanner, who is also a professional photographer. Mr. Tanner fell in love with jazz and then with photography. By the early 1950s, he had begun combining his passions. He first published his images in a major jazz magazine, Down Beat, in 1958. Unlike some other jazz photographers, Mr. Tanner focused almost exclusively on capturing candid moments. Using newer technology that allowed him to pursue "available light" photography, free of flashbulbs, he photographed musicians in their often dimly lighted natural environment: live performance. "I think the important thing is to be able to be present when the music is being played, because there is a very, very intimate relationship between the musicians, their music and their instruments," he told CNN in 1997. And it's very, very special in person as opposed to hearing it on record. Lee Elliot Tanner was born on May 28, 1931, in New York. His father, Vladimir, was an artist who designed movie posters. His mother, Enid, was a hat buyer for Lord & Taylor. His parents enjoyed classical music, but Mr. Tanner was drawn to jazz. He owned his first camera by the time he was 14. But even as he began pursuing photography seriously in his 20s, Mr. Tanner was also preparing for a different kind of career. In 1953 he graduated with an engineering degree from New York University, specializing in metallurgy. Five years later, after serving as an engineer in the Army, he received a master's degree in metallurgy and materials science from the University of Pennsylvania. His work as a scientist, which included finding ways to heat metals like titanium to make them more pliable, often involved traveling the country. He frequently brought his camera along, spending evenings taking pictures in local jazz clubs wherever he went. In the 1960s, while working as a materials scientist in Boston, he spent time on the set of the WGBH television program "Jazz" photographing the performers. He later produced a weekly program for the station called "Mixed Bag," featuring live performances in diverse genres, including jazz, blues and rock. Mr. Tanner's work has been exhibited in solo and group shows and included in several books, including multi-photographer collections like the Gillespie anthology "Dizzy" (1994), as well as books focused solely on his pictures, including "Images of Jazz" (1996). In addition to his daughter Lisa, his survivors include another daughter, Dina Hausman; his wife, the former Linda Brandt Boam; and four grandchildren. His daughters are from his first marriage, to the former Lucia Antonioli, which ended in divorce. Mr. Tanner noted in interviews that he enjoyed exploring the technical and scientific questions in photography, including the possibilities of the darkroom. One of his most famous pictures is a close-up of Ellington that he had cropped and enlarged from an image of Ellington at the piano. Even though he preferred candid images, he expressed some sympathy to photographers who posed their subjects. "It's been disappointing to find that even some of the best candid photographers set up some of their pictures," he said in a 2002 interview with the Web site Jerry Jazz Musician. But then again, I take artistic liberties after the fact in the darkroom.