Michael L. Abramson, 62, photographed the famous and Chicago nightlife

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Michael L. Abramson photographed some of the most famous people in the world, including Michael Jordan and Steven Spielberg — and even charmed the executives of Kellogg’s to sit around their boardroom eating cereal for a shot.

Another time, he had a female executive climb a tree for just the right picture to illustrate a story, his longtime partner Midge Wilson said.

But after a single comment about a jazz club on the South Side, Abramson dove into to a new world where his images, frozen in time by his Leica camera, tell the story of Chicago’s nightlife during the 1970s, collected in Light: On the South Side.

Mr. Abramson died as a result of kidney cancer on March 21. He was 62.

His photographs were reminiscent of Brassai, who photographed the Parisian nightclub scene, and Weegee, who’s work showed the harshness of reality in New York City, said Tom Lunt, a friend.

Lunt and Abramson first began working together after he saw Mr. Abramson’s work in a newspaper. But after Lunt saw his photographs of African-American nightclub patrons from the ’70s they decided they needed to publish a book.

“They were not only interesting [pictures], but really important because they captured things that wasn’t seen, that no one took pictures of,” Lunt said.

Thousands of pictures filled boxes littered about Mr. Abramson’s home and basement, but after years of waiting, Light: On the South Side was published in 2009 by the Numero Group.

“It was his opus,” Wilson said, “He got that out there before he died, that was his work.”

He was born in Jersey City, N.J.

“Mike was a popular kid in school. He played basketball and all the girls wanted to know me, in order to know my older brother Mike — he was pretty cool guy,” his sister, Leslie, said.

Mr. Abramson followed his father’s footsteps to the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School for business where he graduated in 1970, Leslie Abramson said.

“Michael got out of business school and didn’t feel like he was following his goal and took a much different path,” she said. “I don’t think anyone in college saw Michael as an artist, but that’s kind of the direction he went. He wasn’t a salesman, that didn’t do it for him.”

It was the ’70s and Mr. Abramson decided to take a photography class, and on a whim he applied to the Illinois Institute of Technology, bringing him to Chicago in 1974, Wilson said.

He earned a master’s degree in photography there in 1978 and for a brief period taught photography at Columbia College and IIT.

“He just went with it,” said Wilson, who met Mr. Abramson in 1980, although the two did not start seriously dating until 1999.

At times he did work for Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and the New York Times, and some of his pictures are featured at museums in the city and across the country, including the Art Institute of Chicago.

Traveling extensively all over the world, Mr. Abramson was never without his camera, which opened the world up even further to him. He was invited to many strangers’ homes, dinners and once even a wedding, Wilson said.

On many trips, he brought hundreds of copies of a photo he took of Michael Jordan dressed in a suit on his 30th birthday for Time magazine.

“He would be in the most remote village, and he would pull out these photos and he would give it to them, and they would act like they were handed a brick of gold, ‘Michael Jordan,’ ” Wilson said.

He would even use the photos of the Chicago Bulls legend to barter with people to pose for photographs and meet locals, she said.

It was important to Mr. Abramson to live in a neighborhood and have a front yard, Wilson said. He romanticized about the unsung places on little corners no one had discovered and visited a park near his home in West Irving Park twice a day to walk his Labradoodle, Hazel.

Hazel was also once featured in a photograph for Time magazine, courtesy of Mr. Abramson.

On his first digital assignment at the beginning of the digital photography age, at the last minute, Mr. Abramson was told he would have 10 minutes to shoot a photo for a newspaper of the famed Hollywood director Steven Spielberg.

With no experience in digital photography he took a short lesson on a borrowed camera and went into the shoot. He was never intimidated, Wilson said.

“I hate digital,” Spielberg told Mr. Abramson.

So did Mr. Abramson. He asked the Oscar winner if he could photograph him with his Leica, and Spielberg agreed. It would be one of Mr. Abramson’s favorite photographs.

Although he rarely took photographs of his family, he agreed when asked to take photographs at his niece’s graduation from Dartmouth College in 2008.

“One thing about Michael he always liked to leave it open whether he would be there, he was noncommittal,” said his niece, Hannah Rossman, “He liked to know if there was another adventure to come up he could take it, but he was there when he needed to be there.”

Mr. Abramson is also survived by his mother Ethel; and a brother, Richard.

Mr. Abramson’s friends and relatives plan to have a “celebration” of his life in May.