The GF had a convention to attend in San Francisco and a friend to see in San Diego and I had relatives to visit in Anaheim. My aunt picked us up at the airport and we stayed with her and my uncle while we were in SoCal.

My uncle – who ran a place called The Cycle Shack – let us borrow his El Camino (a very cool vehicle that you’ll see in the Disneyland pictures). We left it at the border for a quick look at Tijuana and then visited the San Diego friend, the San Diego Zoo and Olvera Street – the oldest street in LA.

At the Zoo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I specifically told her, “Do NOT pat the goat’s butt or else its ears and horns will fall off”. Kids………

 

On Olvera St:

The owner doesn’t seem to appreciate my addition to his sign.

 

 

Somewhere outside of LA – Rancho Palos Verdes, I think – this scene caught my eye. I never got to see the rest of that building, but I’m hoping it was a residence.

 

 

In the same area (it was only 3 shots later), I saw this. Again, I’m not sure of the actual name of the town, but whatever it is, I’m renaming it “Redundancy Heights”.

I’m guessing that the Pacific Ocean wasn’t big enough for them.

 

 

Since I was a kid (when Disney World didn’t exist), I always wanted to go to Disneyland…………too much Mickey Mouse Club, I guess. We borrowed the El Camino one last time and headed on over there. The GF took a shot of me with the car in the Disneyland parking lot. This is for Uncle Billy and Aunt Marilyn.

We stayed all day and I shot the nightly Main Street Electrical Parade. We beat it back to the Aunt & Uncle’s in time to see the Disneyland fireworks from their pool.

 

 

 

 

According to his shirt, Terry’s got a pretty nice job:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So now it was time to head up to San Francisco. We rented a Thunderbird – only cool cars for us on this trip!

First two shots:

On the way north, the GF drove as I took shots out the window. Moving at 60mph, you better get it right the first time. If not, there’s no going back.

I think I did OK.

The first shot was a “time-of-day” shot…………a few hours earlier would have shown no shadow and no real reason to take the picture. By the way – I have no idea where these scenes are located and I’d love to know what structure is inside the second picture. I’m not even sure if they were before or after San Luis Obispo as you head north, but I’m leaning toward before. If anyone knows the answers to any of these questions, lemme know.

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we were approaching the San Luis Obispo area, we decided to stop at a place called the Chuck Wagon (“All you can eat!”) for dinner and to ask where we could find a local hotel for the night. BTW – the Chuck Wagon doesn’t exist anymore, so I’m glad I took this shot:

 

 

The waitress told us that there was some event going on nearby and every hotel room in the vicinity was booked solid. After looking at our glum, tired faces, she said, “Hang on a minute” and walked away.

A few minutes later, she came back with armloads of blankets and pillows. She then said to take them and drive back down the highway to a certain exit and then drive under the highway toward the ocean. There was a beach there that we could park on and sleep in the car! That’s where I took the below picture of the T-Bird. The only catch was that we would have to return the blankets/pillows the next morning………….when we would be there anyway for all-you-can-eat breakfast.

Pretty good deal, huh?

 

 

 

Once again – no idea where this is, so I’ve named the road the Drive Into The Mountain Highway:

 

 

 

From Wikipedia:

“Standing on a granite hillside off California’s scenic 17-Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, the Lone Cypress is a western icon, and has been called one of the most photographed trees in North America.”

Too bad that the weather conditions weren’t great for photos that day.

 

 

 

The first sign of San Francisco was the one for Candlestick Park (and the sight of the stadium). That was the home of the baseball Giants and the football 49ers. I’m glad I managed to get a picture of both the sign and the stadium in one shot as the car was flying down the highway.

 

 

 

The next signs were the actual sight of the city and the lanes directing traffic to various parts of it.

We were in the right one to get us to the St. Francis Hotel.

 

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO

This shot is of me and the GF in the St Francis Hotel. If it’s not obvious, I’m the one on the right.

 

 

 

While the GF was at her convention, I got to wander the city with my other GF – my camera. It’s the best place I’ve ever been to do something like that. There are SO many cool and interesting things to shoot. I got a lot, but barely scratched the surface. If you love taking pictures and you have a year or so to spend, SF is the place to do it.

I’m showing what I shot when I was just walking around in no particular order because I have no idea what I shot on which day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this online. It’s what the previous shot (333 Broadway) looks like today. Look at the second-floor framework…………identical.

 

 

 

 

In Chinatown:

 

 

crooked Lombard Street:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I should have introduced myself first:

 

 

 

Standing in the street, I have my choice of three different types of vehicles to get hit by:

 

 

 

 

(Back to Chinatown) I was looking for this slide for a long time, since it was one of my favorite SF shots. After I found it, I looked online for similar shots……..there must be a lot of pictures of this place online, right?

I couldn’t find a single one until I stumbled across a book about gas stations called “Fill ‘Er Up” and all it shows in the 1966 pic (following mine) is the pump area and not the cool-looking station. Boo! Hiss!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I DO remember that on the third (?) day, I hooked up with an old friend from New Jersey named Charlie who volunteered to be my tour guide for the day. We hit Baker Beach (he’s the one I surprised when he exited the beach Port-o-John). The shot after that I think was taken from where he was living. If you look closely in that third shot, you can see what looks like a hawk to the right of the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He also took me to The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park (next 3 shots) – a place I didn’t think I’d like, but I was wrong. The story and more photos can be found on my site in the California listing.

 

 

 

 

 

Just north of Ocean Beach sits the Cliff House restaurant:

 

 

 

On a non-convention day, the GF and I decided to go to Muir Woods on Mount Tamalpais, AKA Mount Tam, just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County (the two spider web shots).

 

 

 

 

On the way there, we had to go through Rainbow Tunnel soon after crossing the bridge. We didn’t know about it and I wasn’t ready to shoot when we approached it, so I had to shoot it through the T-Bird’s rear window on our way back.

The tunnel has since been renamed the Robin Williams Tunnel.

 

 

I had hoped to get one of those low-cloud shots from Mt. Tam of SF’s tallest structures poking through the clouds, but ’twas not to be.

This was taken on the way back to SF:

 

 

One evening, we got to take a great boat tour of San Francisco Bay.

 

 

We cruised under both bridges, but when we went under the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge, I got a shot of a submarine doing the same thing. No one knew which sub it was or why it was there and there was nothing about it on the news.

 

 

I also got a nice shot of a sailboat that seemed to be close to tipping over (with the Transamerica Pyramid building in the background).

 

 

Remember an old Burt Lancaster movie called “The Birdman of Alcatraz”? I not only photographed Alcatraz Island, but I also got a shot of the BIRD of Alcatraz.

 

 

 

 

Finally, after passing under the Golden Gate Bridge, I got this shot before we docked:

 

 

Back on land, we went to (and I shot) a couple of dives on Pier 39:

 

 

 

 

Back at the hotel, I called my home answering machine to check my messages and found one from a publicist urging me to call her ASAP. When I did, she said she wanted to hire me to be the official photographer for a big country music concert at Shea Stadium in New York………….in a couple of days.

That meant I had to leave SF a day early and that the GF and I both had to fly home alone.

I JUST made it back in time only to find out that the show had been suddenly canceled.

Arrrrrrrrgh!

 

The old, Deco-y Teaneck Theater that was 5 blocks from home when I was a kid had been recently converted to a multi-screen facility called Cedar Lane Cinema (and currently, “Teaneck Cinemas”):

 

 

I have no idea where or when this “each-segment-contains-a thousand-lines” fireworks picture was taken. Best guess is Ridgewood, NJ in 1982.

 

 

This “these-things-don’t belong-together” Corvette/Rent-a-John shot was taken at an outdoor oldies show in Vernon, NJ – a show I had been invited to by legendary DJ Cousin Brucie (Bruce Morrow) when he visited The Uncle Floyd Show (I was the UFS photographer). If you want to see/read more about this, go to bobleafe.com and find the Chuck Berry listing (he was the headliner).

 

 

In the early-to-mid 70s, I went to a lot of concerts at The Shaefer Music Festival in NYC’s Central Park. In 1977, it changed sponsorship and became the Dr. Pepper Music Festival. At some point, it was moved to Pier 84 on the Hudson River (right next to the Intrepid aircraft carrier at Pier 86) and I went to a bunch of shows there in the 80s, where they ran until 1988.

In September 1982, the GF and I rode our bikes in Manhattan. After checking out the Intrepid from the street, we rode over to Pier 84. The concert series had already ended for the summer. I had only seen this place full of people, so this desolate-looking shot was one I had to have.

 

 

Across town by the East River, we found this car that looked like it had just fallen off the Queensboro Bridge:

 

 

Lastly, I have no idea where I took this photo, though I’m guessing it was early if that’s morning dew:

 

For my sister’s 23rd birthday, I arranged a seaplane ride, including the GF, that took off from the Overpeck Creek/Hackensack River area in Ridgefield Park, NJ. It headed south, generally following the New Jersey Turnpike and taking us over the Meadowlands, past the Sports Complex (Brendan Byrne Arena, Giants Stadium, Meadowlands Racetrack).

 

 

 

 

 

We cut over to the bay and flew over the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I had told the pilot I’d be shooting, so he suggested taking the right rear seat and flew to the left of those structures so I could capture them. Then he made a U-turn, so we could go up the Hudson River and everything was right out my window as we headed north: the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, 34th Street, Central Park and its reservoir (between 86th and 96th streets) and Riverside Church (between 120th and 122nd streets).

 

 

 

 

 

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn is in the background:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I should mention that the plane rocked a bit from side-to-side, which put the right wing in my frame, limiting when I could shoot. As you can see, I included one of those poorly-timed shots that cut off Tower One’s antenna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The spired buildings are the Chrysler Building on the left and the Empire State Building on the right. The round building just below center is the world-famous Madison Square Garden.

 

 

 

A look down 34th St. For all you out-of-towners, we’re flying over the Hudson River and you can see the East River – Manhattan’s eastern boundary – at the end of 34th St. The Garden is on 33rd on Manhattan’s West Side and the Empire State is on 34th on the East Side.

 

 

 

 

 

This looks a little shaky. It must be due to all the air turbulence that caused the rocking back-and-forth of the plane that I mentioned earlier…………….yeah, that’s it.

 

 

 

I was hoping that the pilot would go up as far north as the George Washington Bridge, but he made a left well short of it. At least that gave me a chance to get a shot of (almost) all of the bridge, including New Jersey’s Palisades.

The next shot shows the bridge, the Palisades and Fort Lee, NJ, including some of the roadway that becomes a few major highways.

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, I was straining against my seat belt to turn around to shoot a shot I really wanted. I should tell you first that it was July 5 – a Monday on which the 4th of July was officially celebrated that year. That meant that the world’s largest hanging US flag would be suspended from the NJ tower of the bridge. If you look real hard, you can barely make it out (note: I have lots of closeups of this flag elsewhere on this blog).

 

 

 

The rest of the trip’s shots are of local interest. The structure being built is now the Glenpointe Hotel, which sits at the intersection of I-95 and the eastern terminus of I-80. On the far left is Holy Name Hospital, where I was born.

The next image shows parts of Teaneck and Ridgefield Park, followed by a now-lower-altitude shot of the 4th of July parade on Main St in Ridgefield Park.

The picture after that is a very low-altitude shot of the Route 46 bridge over the Hackensack River, where we splashed down a few moments later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day was overcast, but that doesn’t explain why beautiful Kodachrome film came out so bluish-green (and I’ve removed a LOT of it).

Maybe the plane had tinted windows (uh-huh).

 

NOTE: It’s now been two years since I wrote this post. Just yesterday (May 7, 2019), I finally found the final shot of us after we got out of the plane, taken by the pilot. The windows ARE tinted!

VINDICATION!

 

 

 

SPRING BREAK

The GF had another convention to attend – this time in Miami – so we decided to stay in Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break and also because I had 3 real shoots to do:

– Hall & Oates (opening act: Aldo Nova) in Sunrise

– J. Geils Band (opening act: U2!) in West Palm Beach

– New York Yankees Spring Training in Fort Lauderdale

We stayed in a nice-looking hotel that was right across the street from the beach: Stouffer’s Lauderdale Surf Hotel. I got to take a lot of cool shots without ever leaving the room (well, maybe not the first one):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill appears to be on his boat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIG smokers:

 

 

 

 

Pretty strong current for a swimming pool……….

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, I did have to leave the room, starting off with shooting the Yankees – a dream come true for a life-long Yankee fan. I got to shoot my hero, Mickey Mantle (ONE shot), Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and even boxer Gerry Cooney (I have no idea why he was there).

I have this shoot covered on my site, where you can find it listed under “New York Yankees”, but I did include one shot here that was especially meaningful to me: a candid shot of my two all-time favorite Yankees announcers, Mel Allen and Phil Rizzuto, who were sharing a laugh.

 

 

Back to the beach.

I hit the sand and shot the sights, which apparently included my feet. Then it was on to the bars, starting with cannonballs and teeny bikini contests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amateur:

 

 

Professional:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Counting her winnings. I think some of the girls were making a nice living winning every day.

 

 

Guess who won……..

 

 

That’s her prize? Unless that’s her boyfriend, she got gypped. Even then……

 

 

Finally, it was time for the highlight of Spring Break: the wet t-shirt contests (some of which sort of went beyond wet t-shirts at some point). I was kind of surprised that hardly anyone was taking pictures and more surprised that someone walking in with professional equipment was allowed to shoot openly with no questions asked.

Oh yeah…………that last shot. I think there was a contest to see who could stuff the most golf balls in their bathing suit, but – as you can see – it wasn’t the sexiest-looking contest that Fort Lauderdale had to offer.

I think the winner was offered a job retrieving golf balls from a water hazard at some golf course (and if you believe that……………).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, we finish up Spring Break with a classic shot of a vehicle driven by the state’s best comedians.

Lotsa laughs in Florida.

Things slowed down considerably in the non-music photo department as I got much more heavily into my career (and said adios to the GF), although the first two photos ARE sort of career-connected.

When I rediscovered this shot in 2016, I could NOT figure out how this image came to be. The flag hangs from the NJ tower of the George Washington Bridge and I’m in the westbound lanes, coming into Jersey. I’m obviously in the back of a car, shooting through the back window. And a sign is wishing the Brooklyn Bridge a Happy 100th birthday.

The Kodak stamp on the slide said “JUN 83″, but the flag only hangs on certain national holidays and there aren’t any in June…………….but there IS one at the end of May (Memorial Day) and if I dropped the slide roll off at the Kodak plant in Fair Lawn, NJ on May 31, the slide would have a June date because it would have been processed on June 1.

OK – now we’re getting somewhere.

I have pocket-sized Daily Reminder books that I’ve kept since 1981, so I looked up May 31, 1983 and it turns out that another photographer and I flew into LaGuardia Airport that day after shooting the massive 3-day Us Festival in California.

We grabbed a cab at the airport and after she was dropped off on 107th St in Manhattan, the cab continued up to the GWB to bring me home, so this is the last photo I took on a week-long trip to shoot one of the biggest outdoor festivals of the 1980s.

There were ALL sorts of problems with this slide and it took a LOT of work to get it looking halfway decent, but to me, it was worth it.

 

 

 

Speaking of the Us Festival, I took this shot backstage early one evening. I don’t recall where they placed all the balloons – the string of them actually may have been too short for the massive stage – but I thought this was a really interesting shot that I don’t think anyone else got (corrections always welcome).

 

 

 

After the Us Festival, some of us photographers were hanging around in Hollywood because we were supposed to meet someone (I think). Since I took this photo at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, I’m guessing that that was our meeting place.

While the others were standing around talking, I saw a photo op: what appeared to be a Chinese tour group. What a perfect place to photograph them.

I don’t think that anyone in the shot spoke any English, but I somehow communicated to them that I wanted to take a group shot of them and they were cooperative – some much more enthusiastically than others.

 

 

 

I was in Manhattan one day, had my camera with me and decided to take a couple of shots using the red filter of my fisheye lens. The first one was in the vicinity of 42nd St and 6th Ave and the second one was taken from my agency’s Times Square office window. On the right in that second shot is One Times Square where the ball falls on New Year’s Eve (which I enjoyed from the same place, 14 floors above Dick Clark, going into 1990).

 

 

 

 

 

While I was there, I asked my agent to sit on the window ledge and lean out a bit (as I switched to the yellow filter on the fisheye). It didn’t come out well because there was no light to illuminate her face (I didn’t have my flash with me as I was traveling light to shoot in broad daylight).

The only thing I could do was eliminate ALL color from her (except for the top of her hair) and try to brighten her up a bit. It ain’t great, but it’s better than what I started out with.

Sorry, Ginny.

 

 

 

From my site:

Greenwich Village, NYC

Grieving New York sophisticates recoil in horror at the sight of another brutal, senseless homicide.

Terribly sad.

 

 

 

I came across this scene while exiting the subway. Of course, you think the worst at first – and I still don’t know for sure – but my assumption is that he was sleeping off a bender.

I liked the composition and lighting…….and the expression on the woman who happened to walk by as I took the picture was a bonus.

 

 

 

On a side note…………..sometimes when I look at images, another image pops into my head as a good companion – something that might work well together. Mind you, I didn’t think of this in the 80s when I took these pictures, but rather in 2016 when I was gathering all the images for this project.

“Wait a minute. This B&W reminds me of a similarly-foreboding shot: the 1980 one of CBGB’s bathroom. Maybe this guy isn’t dead. Maybe he just had to pee really badly and didn’t make it a couple more feet to CBGB’s bathroom”

Joining the pictures creates that illusion……….and also this little ditty:

“Dying to pee
at CBGB”

(I love this stuff)

 

Drop a chipped yellow ceramic plate into a big pot of water and use the flash to catch the stop-action of the resultant splash.

I must have been bored that day.

 

 

 

This is my press pass for the first MTV Viewer Music Awards show at Radio City Music Hall in NYC in 1984. Remember Madonna in her “Boy Toy” wedding gown? I have shots of her in that gown and a lot of other artists from that night on bobleafe.com (I also got to shoot the 2nd VMAs).

 

 

 

From my site:

Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, NYC 1984

The girls were undoubtedly advertising a new in-flight, company-produced beverage, ‘TWA Tea’. It must be a very dark tea because it left “tea moustaches” on the four of them.

 

 

 

The Eunice K. Leafe retirement photo (unused)

From my site:

Municipal Building, Teaneck, NJ

Mom, who worked for the town, asked me to come to a Council meeting to take pictures of her giving a framed photo presentation to the town. Afterwards, we went downstairs to her office and devised this shot.

She was EXTREMELY neat and organized, so, of course, I would have none of that. We thought it would be funny to all who knew her in town to show the anti-Eunice whenever she finally retired. It came out great (he says modestly) and she loved it.

Unfortunately, she suffered a serious illness 12 years later while still working and died 7 months after that, so we never got a chance to formally use this informal shot.

I made copies and gave them out to family members after the funeral. I also had one copy mounted and framed and this was presented to her co-workers, who promptly hung it by her vacant desk.

My absolute favorite shot of my mother, to whom I once had to pay a parking ticket fine (she worked in the Violations Bureau).

 

A little more action this year………..

I got hired to go to Sayreville, NJ and do some publicity shots for a rock club. The story is on bobleafe.com – just enter 19-001 into the search box.

(It involves alcohol and – horrors! – a DWI/DUI stop!)

 

 

 

Found this 1958 Ford coupe in the parking lot at Giants Stadium when I went to shoot a Springsteen show there. The owner was obviously a fan.

 

 

 

This was taken at a midnight gold record party for the band Krokus at Tower Records (Broadway and 66th St, NYC) when another photographer jumped in front of me out of nowhere and instantly surprised the hell out of me when the flash went off (don’t I look real surprised?)

The menu at this party was chili (what I’m eating) and margaritas. I have to mention that because it looks like I have a plate of dog food.

This photo was used as the lead picture in a 6-page feature about my work (you can read the title in the second picture – I’m far too modest to write it out loud) in the February 1986 issue of Hard Rock Video magazine, whose editor you’ll be introduced to in the 1986 post.

 

 

 

I finally came across a copy of this magazine that wasn’t yellowed with age (he’s lying – he photoshopped the yellow out of his copy). This 5-page feature was the very first “Semi-Decent Rock Photographers” spread (I’m honored) and it ran in the July 1985 issue of Rock Video magazine (the predecessor of Hard Rock Video magazine).

This first series was all black-and-white photos and after a half-dozen or so other photographers were featured, the process was started all over again with my color shots (above), so I’m doubly-honored.

 

 

I used to shoot for WNEW-FM, but I don’t know what the occasion was for this gathering of DJs and other NEW personnel in front of the old Hard Rock Cafe on 57th St in Manhattan (or who I stole the shot from).

 

 

 

I really don’t cook, but I DID manage to throw together this pot of chili from scratch (note the soup can full of fat – proud of me?).

Actually, I was following a recipe from the old GF, who I’m sure was a bit less messy.

 

 

For dessert, don’t order the soft chocolate ice cream!

 

 

“All alone in Burr-gen County”

I know the feeling.

 

 

 

SELFIE TIME! Rambo meets Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” tour headband. I never showed this to my mother because whatever “that thing” was, she was always afraid I’d poke my eye out with it (“You’ll poke your eye out with that thing”).

 

 

 

AROUND MANHATTAN

I have no idea where I took this shot.

 

 

 

I was hired to shoot the finish of a cross-country race for……..elderly vehicles? The finish line was near the World Trade Center and the story is on my site (enter 18-091 in the search box to read it, if you’re interested).

 

 

 

Also in the vicinity were dancing girls and a guy on stilts. Popeye, however, was in Times Square near the subject of the picture after him. Agree or not, I think that image after Popeye is interesting from an historical perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next two pictures were taken looking south and north from 65 floors up from inside the Rainbow Grill, which is in the RCA building/30 Rock (this is NOT the Observation Deck – “The Top of the Rock” – which is 70 floors up). The building is on 6th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets.

The occasion was a 50th Anniversary Party for Manny’s Music, a well-known 48th St music shop. Since I was shooting through glass, there were a bunch of reflections that I spent a long time trying to remove. I did a decent job…………..I just wish the color was better.

Visible in the first (south) picture are the Empire State Building in the center, and, going to the right, the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty (very small), and New Jersey. Just to the left of the ESB and on the horizon, you can barely make out the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn.

Visible in the second (north) are Central Park, which goes from 59th St to 110th St, the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge (very small), and New Jersey on the left.

Both scenes look different today and the RCA building has gone through two name changes.

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, we come to one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken.

I’m in the only place where I could get this shot – Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ – and fireworks are going off in both the Hudson and East Rivers, while a nearly-full moon rises between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. There’s a long story about it on my site (enter 18-001 in the search box) that I think is worth reading. This version is a recently-improved one from the site image.

Late addition: I recently found a picture of me taken that night on the spot I shot from. I have no idea who took it.

 

 

 

Danny Fields is a legendary figure in the music industry. He was part of Andy Warhol’s original Factory gang, he did publicity for The Doors, he managed The Ramones and Iggy Pop, he wrote for trade publications, put out a couple of books (including one about his friend, Linda McCartney)……………..he even had an MTV show where he gave double-decker bus tours of musically-historic places around NYC.

I forgot to mention that he also edited music magazines. In this shot, he’s editing a bunch of my slides for Hard Rock magazine.

Danny was my favorite editor because unlike most other editors, he “got it”. When an editor “gets it”, he’ll pick out more of my “A” shots than my “B” ones (you wouldn’t believe some of the images that others selected that I had to switch out when they weren’t looking).

Danny picked “A” shots EVERY SINGLE TIME!! No other editor did that with my work.

The highest praise a photographer can give an editor: we shared an eye.

I’m proud to still be his friend.

 

 

 

Somewhat less legendary is this guy and the camera he invented – the decidedly non-legendary WinkMaster 3000.

Never before could pictures be taken with such ease. A simple wink activated the finger on the shutter button to take the picture.

One night – which, coincidentally, was Halloween night – I wore it to Madison Square Garden where I shot the Crackdown Concert.

Here’s what the New York Times had to say in advance of the show:

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/31/arts/pop-jazz-concerts-with-a-cause-fight-against-crack.html

 

This is the ad for the show:

And here’s what the same New York Times writer had to say after the show:

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/02/arts/pop-crack-down-an-eclectic-benefit-concert.html

But most importantly, here are a few of the stunning images I took with the amazing WinkMaster 3000:

Reluctantly, I DID take pictures with my other cameras and some of those can be found on bobleafe.com/ under “Crackdown Concert”.

 

 

 

Somewhere in Bergenfield, NJ:

 

 

 

Hands Across America! This photo is a recently-reworked version of the one on my site.

From my site:

Degraw Avenue, Teaneck, NJ

Wowee-Zowee! What excitement! What a waste of time!

For those of you born after the 1970’s, this event was supposed to be an unbroken human link from coast to coast to raise money to fight hunger and homelessness. Participants paid $10 to reserve a spot in line so they could hold hands with over 5 million people for 15 minutes at 3pm EDT on May 25.

I got a kick out of seeing all the hand-holders with cameras draped around their necks. How were they going to capture the big moment without breaking the chain and jumping out of line to get a shot like this?

And speaking of excitement, the Glenpointe Marriott Hotel (dark building in the center) sits at the biggest T-junction on the East Coast – where Route 80 begins/ends at I-95.

Be still, my heart.

 

 

 

From my site:

Giants Stadium, E. Rutherford, NJ

Photographed here at a non-football event, these girls were cheerleaders for the USFL’s New Jersey Generals…………..and the league STILL folded!

The Generals, of course were owned by a Mr. Donald J. Trump. For more on his USFL contributions:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/sports/football/donald-trumps-less-than-artful-failure-in-pro-football.html

 

 

From my site:

Teaneck, NJ 1986

I got an unusual call one night just before midnight from my mother………….’unusual’ because she was usually asleep by then.

‘Why aren’t you at the fire?’

‘What fire?’

‘The one down the street from you.’

‘Huh?’

Mom worked for the town and always had her Police/Fire scanner on. A food market on my street 2 blocks away was on fire. I had always wanted to shoot a fire, but am not the scanner/chaser type.

Here’s my one good color shot from that fire, since I shot mostly B&W that night. Next is the B&W that made it to the front page of the town paper.

 

 

 

 

 

This was the front porch door of the house I lived in for most of the 1980s – normally boring as hell, but not in the fall.

 

 

 

A few feet from that front door, I was hard at work taking this selfie (which maybe should be called a “feetie”).

 

 

From my site:

Brendan Byrne and Eliza Joy Phillips
Roseland, NJ

I was hired by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to go to the former New Jersey governor’s office and photograph the Honorary Chairman, for whom the Meadowlands Arena was originally named, with the CFF Poster Representative.

I arrived at his law offices and found him there with a sweet, beautiful little girl who was afflicted with this disease, though you couldn’t tell.

The photo was used in a CFF benefit auction program.

 

 

 

I went on the road to shoot Van Halen in Indianapolis with a friend who liked to drive. I took these two shots – probably on Route 80 – in either Ohio or Pennsylvania.

I think the rear end of the old Buick might have been the inspiration for the Wayfair sofa (below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got to shoot on the set of The Joe Franklin Show when a couple of Playboy bunnies I knew were interviewed on the show (one sang). Another one of them – who played Little Annie Fanny at the Playboy Empire Club in Manhattan – helped smooth out Joe’s makeup and then Joe posed for me.

I never put these pix on my site, so they’re exclusively here……….for now.

 

 

 

 

 

My career lifeblood:

 

 

 

On New Year’s Eve, 1986, I was at the Brendan Byrne Arena (later called the Continental Airlines Arena and then the Izod Center) to shoot Bon Jovi’s big show. There were lots of little sideshow things going on in the orchestra and I thought that this gentleman would be the one I’d want to remember. It’s not my best shot, but the smiling young ladies didn’t seem to mind.

 

SHOPPING FUR CLOWNS

The truth is less funny than the picture, so I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.

 

 

I was staying with some friends in Grand Prairie, Texas, while I was shooting the Texxas Jam in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

This not-particularly-exciting image was seen in their parking lot. The sofa seemed to throw things off a bit, so what the hell……………..my lasting image of Texas:

 

 

 

From my site:

The landlord had this tree trimmed of some branches. As the sun set a few hours later, it shone brilliantly on the sap-oozing wound.

 

 

 

I happened to look out my window one overcast day and saw this guy pushing all this STUFF uphill. I’ve seen my share of homeless people before, but this one – assuming he WAS homeless – looked more like a moving company.

 

 

 

From my site:

Holy Trinity Church, Hackensack, NJ

Way over the altar is this large image which I had seen every Sunday of my childhood. I thought those orange things were mushrooms – the ones that grow on trees. I still don’t know what they are.

Anyway, I hadn’t seen the image in a while, so I shot this at my nephew Michael’s christening.

 

 

 

I have no idea what was going on at the Arena that day (or why I was even there during daylight hours), but I thought it was an interesting shot to take.

 

 

 

I had shot some show in Poughkeepsie, NY and then went out drinking with a couple of young ladies. At about 3 or 4am, we wound up in a diner on Route 9 and saw this guy at the next table who was much further gone than all of us combined.

How could I resist taking this shot? Then I had to drive 75 miles to go home.

Long night.

 

 

 

Speaking of Poughkeepsie, that’s where I took this picture of a lovely young woman during a show.

Believe it or not, I also took the next picture at the same show. Anyone care to venture a guess as to what show that could possibly be? (Hint: it’s not “Beauty and the Beasts”.)

 

 

 

 

 

STILL speaking of Poughkeepsie, this was taken backstage after an Anthrax/Celtic Frost/Exodus show at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center………….and this a different show from the one mentioned in the two previous pictures.

 

 

From my site:

Englewood Boat Basin, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Rossana DiBello – a great name (and my sister-in-law’s sister) – was brought into this picture to make the George Washington Bridge and Manhattan look better.

 

 

 

I have lots of other shots of Paterson, NJ’s Great Falls in this blog, but this is one of my favorites because of the redundancy of the artist’s image.

If you’re into Alexander Hamilton, he was the one who first saw these falls, realized their power potential and wound up making Paterson an industrial force, back in the day.

I’ve visited these falls since the mid-70s and they (and the area surrounding them) were recently named as a National Park, so if you’re in the NYC area, they’re worth a visit (and are only about 15 miles from Manhattan).

 

 

This was shot somewhere between 1/4 and 1/15 of a second for that silky look:

 

 

 

Here are two shots I took while walking around the Meadowlands Fair on a day that looked like it would become stormy. That’s why I used the higher speed black-and-white film. Using slow Kodachrome would have been a disaster.

 

 

 

With a name like “5th Avenue”, you’d think this Manhattan subway station would be a little more upscale, but, uh…….no.

 

 

 

This poor old guy appears to have gotten in trouble with a police horse and his human companion over a license plate problem on his scooter.

 

 

 

A somewhat friendlier cop does something nice for some tourists.

 

 

 

JUST what you would expect to see at the very high-end intersection of 5th Avenue and 57th Street (practically across the street from Trump Tower).

 

 

 

 

 

This was the scene after the 30th Annual Grammys – the only Grammys I ever got to shoot.

 

 

 

Mixed messages………..have the great smile and the dastardly digit met?

 

 

 

For a while, every time I shot a show at NYC’s Cat Club, people would tell me about some guy who hung out there and supposedly looked just like me. News to me.

When I finally met him, I had someone take a couple of pix with my camera.

Aside from having beards and frizzy heads, I don’t see it.

 

 

 

From my site:

Jim (‘Profit’) and Tammy Faye (‘False’) Bakker adorn a NYC mailbox.

Looks like Jim has a weak bladder.

 

 

 

I had a chance to shoot 3 Guns N’ Roses shows AND do some offstage work with them in California in early 1988. I jumped at it. Go to bobleafe.com to see those pix.

I didn’t mind that the flight wasn’t non-stop because the one stop was in Denver, near where my pregnant sister and her husband lived, so they drove out to the airport for a short hello.

In the picture, I’m in a plane that’s about to turn onto the runway where other planes are waiting to take off, so I thought that was a cool shot to take – especially with the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

 

 

 

The first show was in San Diego, which meant that a quickie trip to Tijuana was in order (next 4 pictures):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other 2 shows were in Anaheim, which was very convenient because it meant staying with my aunt and uncle again, as I had done in 1981.

Also in order was another drive north to San Francisco, including an overnight stay in Morro Bay, where gigantic Morro Rock (“The Gibraltar of the Pacific”) stands in the bay, 576′ tall. I had driven by Morro Bay in 1981 and always wanted to go back there to take some pictures. Here are 7 that I took:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This last picture, of course, is San Francisco:

 

How the accommodations there were acquired is a story in itself:

One day, I was dropping off monthly pictures at Circus magazine in NYC and someone there told me they received a letter addressed to me. It was from a teenage fan of the magazine from Pacifica, California (right below SF), who had seen my photo credit in the magazine every month and whose last name was the same as mine. There are many people named “Leaf” and other variations, but “Leafe” is rare, so she wanted to know if we might be related.

It turns out that we weren’t.

I had previously mentioned to her that I might be in her area soon and she later surprised the hell out of me by offering to put up me and my traveling companion in her house during my time in SF! She had already cleared it with her parents and they turned out to be as gracious as could be.

How many people are willing to open up their home to strangers for a couple of days AND drive them to the airport simply because one of them has the same last name? That was fairly mind-blowing.

So it was a great trip for shooting GN’R with the added bonus that a LOT of hotel money was saved.

Thank you Wendy, Mr. and Mrs. L., Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Billy!