It was essential to work with assistants back when we were shooting film under lights, illuminating busy famous people anxious to be anywhere else. Usually younger, certainly less advanced along the career ladder, my assistants were nonetheless integral parts of my work product and environment. I often thought of them as apprentices or interns. As such, I encouraged them to use my photo equipment for their own work. Of course, provided they returned it so it would be ready when I needed it for a job. (foreshadowing: a narrative device in which a storyteller gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story, and it helps develop or subvert the audience's expectations about upcoming events.)
Two in particular, Patricia McDonough and Jennifer Karady, went on to great heights of success after toiling in the fields of Chris X Carroll Photography. Patricia became a great family friend who was present at the birth of my daughters. And Jen K collaborates with wounded veterans on intense and thoughtful photographic work held by major collections.
“Here’s a good one for you,” teased Jodi Peckman, my editor at Rolling Stone, one Spring day in 1993. Charlie Watts, longtime drummer for the Rolling Stones, had a book out or a solo project, something I can’t work Google well enough to remember. I would definitely never be trusted with the actual Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World but the drummer, hey what kind of trouble could we get into with a half hour and a hotel room? Not much really, as Charlie Watts turned out to be the opposite of a rock star, and won me over as perhaps the coolest person I ever photographed.
We were told we’d have a half hour, and we absolutely had to shoot in some anonymous midtown hotel room. No matter how many years I’d lived and worked in New York, traffic could still come to get the better of me. So it was that we found ourselves if not late, a lot closer to “on time” than I was comfortable with. My crew and I got to setting up the myriad lights and softboxes and stands required to create a mini studio in a hotel room. I started working on putting together the modular Mamiya camera system while kind of idly wondering why the space in the case where the light meter usually lived was empty. Gradually, then suddenly, then absolutely urgently, I engaged my assistant using the voice I know so well from doctors, airline pilots, and dentists trying to give bad news but not let on just how bad that news is.
“Um, Assistant (names withheld to protect the innocent, guilty, and still friends with), any idea where that nutty lil’ light meter might have gotten to?”
She stopped what she was doing, froze, and I watched the color drain from her face. Remember that thing about supporting my assistants with free use of equipment? Yep, ten minutes to the arrival of A Rolling Stone, and we have no light meter. Turns out it was sitting on her dresser, in her apartment, in Brooklyn.
In the meantime, I realized we might not be quite as boned as my panickey first reaction might suggest. The lighting setup was one I did all the time. I could guess the exposures, rely on Polaroids and clip tests (and the oh so forgiving black and white negative film). Rock and roll! Yeah, don’t need no light meter, maybe I’ll throw the TV out the window?
And than this weird quiet little old man (sheesh, he was 52, younger than I am now, but he had the affect of “old man” even in his 20s) showed up, no publicist, no entourage at all, sat down in the chair we had ready and said “What do you need, Govnuh?” No, no he didn’t, he did not sound like an extra in Oliver Twist, but he did have the identical accent to my college girlfriend. He moved slowly, spoke quietly, and in almost every way gave no hint that he was the DRUMMER FOR THE ROLLING STONES. I asked if he knew Pauline, disappointed to note he did not. The Beatles had filmed a Hard Day’s Night in her house so it was plausible.If I had married her (Ha! -ed) I would have become a Viscount, as one does. But I was really too busy working to chat him up much. Plus if you get people to talk too much then you have a bunch of pictures of them talking which might be a thing but was not my thing. Oh, and we did bond over Barbour jackets, this brand I’d gotten into for fishing in Claryville. The kind of fishing he did on some chalk beat on his estate is as far from the splashing around I do in the Catskills yet was something to talk about that wasn’t drumming. Or what it was like being in the Rolling Stones. But no, probably better to wax rhapsodic about the effectiveness of a Royal Coachman than compare sticks and snares.
There were subjects I met who were every inch the same in private as in public, (cf. Joe Cocker, Steven Tyler, Paula Abdul) but I don’t think I ever came across someone whose private affect so mightily opposed their public vibe. Charlie (I tried to call him Mr. Watts but he wouldn’t have it. “Sir” was right out.) might have well been like this all the way from limo to stage, but when you’re hanging out with Mick and Keith, who’s looking at anything else? In the instance, he was affable, genteel, and just super delightful. There was none of that hands-never-stop-every-surface-a-drum business. The entire time we were together there was no indication either that he was a drummer nor that he was a founding member of the Greatest Rock and Roll Band. Those long-time stars always appreciated my prep and alacrity in finishing up and sending them on their way without wasting their time. When I finished up before the allotted 30 minutes and dismissed him (that IS a funny phrase!) he was surprised. But just as happy to leave as to continue.
For punishment I made my assistants pack the equipment and shlep it back downtown, then up the three long flights of stairs to the loft. I followed Charlie out the door (not quite cool enough to walk him out to his car of course) took the #1 down to 18th Street, walked down to B&H and bought a second light meter. Film all turned out ok, didn’t even need to push or pull much of it. All’s well that ends well. Oh, and have two of everything; that will help, too.
Very cool mate