July 2007 Rock and Roll Photo of the Month - Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol
Hired by a record label to cover a Rolling Stones LP release party, Aaron used his knowledge of the club's layout to capture an intimate conversation between Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, while including the mayhem around them.
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The Rolling Stones record label hired me to cover a party premier for the Rolling Stones new LP "Love Ya Live" which was to take place in a New Your City club named Trax. I was told by the publicist to shoot anything that moved, so to speak. Since I knew the club very well because of spending all of my evenings there socializing with my industry friends every night, I knew the layout of the club and what I needed to do a photo shoot there.
Two cameras, one with color and one with b&w, both with on camera strobes. The perfect film for this close quarters shoot was Plus-X for the b&w and Ektachrome 100 daylight slide film for the color. I knew what to expect and I was right, the place was packed with friends, press and record company executives. The Stones through the night would be moving around the club posing for pix with anyone who wanted to be photographed with them. While I was looking for the shot, I found one and snapped. It was Mick and Andy sitting at a table talking and since Andy Warhol did the artwork for the LP cover this was a relative shot to take.
I used a 35 mm lens because I wanted to get the surrounding ambience of what was going on at that time. Keeping it wide kept the shot candid and intimate whereas if I shot it with a telephoto lens it would take you away from the personal feeling of the two talking with craziness happening around them. The film was handed to the record company, they picked what they wanted to use for the press and handed me back the originals, which then landed in my files for over 25 years.
When I purchased my Nikon 5000 film scanner one of the first groups to scan were the Rolling Stones. I came upon this image, which I scanned and still it went into my files. I got a call for shots of Andy Warhol from a magazine that was doing a tribute to him and I remembered this shot, which I sent to them for usage. It was used and published. I started to receive calls from people who saw the shot in the publication and wanted to purchase a print. I had to think about selling this shot since it was a "rotzi shot", and that was not my forte. I placed that shot in my portfolio and immediately the galleries picked that shot to hang, show and sell. I was amazed when I started to receive orders for that shot. When you shoot shoulder to shoulder with a photographer every day you forget that he is also famous and to do more of him.
Plus-X film rated normal Nikon F2 camera 35mm lens f/5.6 1/60sec. Strobe on camera
