Penny Memory Lane: In honor of the Queen's celebration, here is one from my archives. This is a shot of Prince Charles and Lady Di that I took in Cannes, France way back when ('87, iirc – click on photo to enlarge). It is a transmission print made in the tiny bathroom of my horrid hotel.That was the first year we transmitted color from the road, I think. Invariably, I would get 2 or 3 color printers transmitted (was it CMYK or RGB color ... hmmm? – we transmitted each color separately at about 10 minutes per color for a total transmission time of half an hour or more) and then the Moroccan front desk clerk at Chez Dump would patch into my phone line to see why it was busy for so long. I never did manage to make him understand, and eventually came close to homicide! Merde! It would take me 2 hours to transmit one photo sometimes.
MY voltage converter for the enlarger blew up the first day I was there. Try finding a 115 to 220 converter in a country that is 220. NOT! All their converters went the other way. After ALL day trudging from store to store, I finally found one in an old dusty appliance store. They used to sell US/115v appliances and had one converter in the back room in a box. It was ceramic and weighed about 10 lbs! $100, and since it was the only one in the S of Fwance, I'd have paid $200! War stories.
The food was great though, as were the new friends Mike Lawn and Keith Waldegrave, long-time Brit newspaper photogs. Talk about war stories ... when a story is breaking in the UK, those guys, especially the tabloids, will stop at almost nothing to get the picture. Mano a mano. There's a famous story about the legendary Harry Benson, on the Beatles' first U.S. tour. All the traveling photographers put their shoes out in the hotel hall to be shined while they slept. In the morning – no shoes. Benson had collected them all and hidden them, and he was the only one with shoes when the Beatles left the hotel that morning! Guerrilla warfare.
UPDATE: Talking about war stories, here's a real one. Just found this on Facebook, a photo of friend Michel Williamson, amazing WashPost photojournalist and Pulitzer winner, taken in El Salvador in the dark days.
The food was great though, as were the new friends Mike Lawn and Keith Waldegrave, long-time Brit newspaper photogs. Talk about war stories ... when a story is breaking in the UK, those guys, especially the tabloids, will stop at almost nothing to get the picture. Mano a mano. There's a famous story about the legendary Harry Benson, on the Beatles' first U.S. tour. All the traveling photographers put their shoes out in the hotel hall to be shined while they slept. In the morning – no shoes. Benson had collected them all and hidden them, and he was the only one with shoes when the Beatles left the hotel that morning! Guerrilla warfare.
There are photographers who specialize only in the Royals – Tim Graham had "exclusive" access to Chuck and Di for a time, and made some wonderful images. It's all PR of a sort, but the people want it. The Royals are more well-behaved in a way than typical celebrities (or at least discreet) and have a decorum and sense of history and responsibility. Born to it, and don't have to work hard to get the attention like so many narcissistic celebs seem to.
UPDATE: Talking about war stories, here's a real one. Just found this on Facebook, a photo of friend Michel Williamson, amazing WashPost photojournalist and Pulitzer winner, taken in El Salvador in the dark days.
Michael posts this: "We were all wacko to even be there. Bro ... I remember all those places but El Playon body dumping ground is my most common recurring nightmare. Even now I get flashbacks when I see a vulture. His friend Gary Kieffer, also in Salvador then, replied: "Oh yeah...mine was the road back where I got caught by the death squad and had an Uzi shoved down my throat...of the lovely smell of gun oil and cabrito on that f----er's breath as he screamed at me for being a Communista."
THESE are war stories (and I won't bore you with ones from the Gulf War, as they pale compared to some from the mad civil wars like Liberia, El Sal, Darfur, Sarajevo, and other hellholes I haven't been to, and mostly that's ok but a part of me wishes...). You can read about ace Reuter's photog Corinne Dufka's transition from photography to NGO investigator. Real war takes a harsh toll. http://iwmf.org/archive/articletype/articleview/articleid/392/fifteen-years-of-courage-corinne-dufka.aspx
Update 2: Reed Saxon, longtime AP veteran, writes: "Ahhh, memory lane. Bathrooms, not quite total darkness, usually 100 deg+, prints from a breakdown enlarger, unreliable (phone) lines. Color tripled the frustration, using Ektaflex early on, til they figured out it was poison. Also carried a small crappy typewriter (remember those?) for captions. Have to say, don't miss it a bit! But proud I could do it! Tell that to some kid with a camera phone..."
Update 2: Reed Saxon, longtime AP veteran, writes: "Ahhh, memory lane. Bathrooms, not quite total darkness, usually 100 deg+, prints from a breakdown enlarger, unreliable (phone) lines. Color tripled the frustration, using Ektaflex early on, til they figured out it was poison. Also carried a small crappy typewriter (remember those?) for captions. Have to say, don't miss it a bit! But proud I could do it! Tell that to some kid with a camera phone..."
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