Or Why I punched the Wardrobe

In 1985 I photographed Robert Smith of The Cure at his record company offices in Marylebone, London for Sounds. He was a sweetie, and all seemed to go well. However, for the first time ever (for me at least) the photos were taken “on approval”. This procedure was totally antithetical to the way I worked and to what I believed being a photographer was. However the photos were intended for the front cover, so I thought fine, no problem. It did mean I had to hurry more than usual and to make a presentation box. In order to protect the fragile original Hasselblad transparencies I mounted them in expensive glass 2.25” slide mounts. There was no time to make costly duplicate medium format transparencies. The black and white prints were proofs and not the intended final master prints.

Well I guess the story can be told now. To keep it simple this is what happened – he destroyed the photographs he liked. That is THE WRONG ONES. When I say destroyed I mean he smashed the glass of the slide mounts and then proceeded to cut up the unique and original transparencies into tiny shards. I received in return a box of broken glass and slivers of cut-up film. Since the photographs were for the front cover, these were the best ones, the colour transparencies. Sounds magazine was not interested in shreds of film for their cover at the time. Nor did the magazine, record company and PR organisation wish to make their pop star appear really stupid, so there was a big hush-up.

I was remarkably angry and punched a wardrobe much too hard. I could see which way the wind was blowing in the celebrity industry and soon changed my style from portrait to commercial studio photography of inanimate objects. At the end of the day a perfunctory sum was paid in recompense, months later. To me that was not the point at all, I had missed doing the cover photo and everybody seemed to think it was somehow my fault. I guess it’s all down to the pecking order, but no-one has the right to destroy someone else’s original work.

In those pre-digital days there were no scanners or any easy way to use the shards of film I was left with. Now 37 years later I have relaxed enough to open up this can of worms and follow Robert’s advice. Yes here is the cut-up he suggested making all those years ago. It might be “art on purpose” but it’s certainly not a Sounds cover.