Going in sequence once again.

January

Remember the commercials for Bounty paper towels – the “quicker picker-upper”? There was a waitress named Rosie, who was played by actress Nancy Walker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbBtq1RXiqc). This is where the commercials were filmed – Little Ferry, NJ – about 3 miles from where I live. Prior to the commercials, I remember the place as the Farmland Diner. I think it later became Rosie’s Farmland Diner and then just Rosie’s Diner, which was later bought, disassembled and trucked to Michigan.

 

 

 

February

A friend and toy collector wanted shots of his wares for a toy show ad, but wanted the image to attract attention. No better way to do that than to bring in my old pal, Donna.

 

 

 

March

So I’m in the photo pit at Madison Square Garden and ready to shoot Janet Jackson. I turn around and right there in the front row is Lawrence Taylor – Hall of Fame linebacker for the New York Giants.

Dunno why the scan came out a bit weird.

 

 

 

May

Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ (backstage). So you could do blow there as long as you didn’t pass out?

 

 

 

June

It was Fleet Week in New York City and I had been hired by Columbia Records to shoot their band, Heavens Edge, aboard the US Coast Guard cutter Dallas. The band played for the sailors in a show on the US aircraft carrier Intrepid (which is now a museum at Pier 86), so they were given this ride to (and tour of) Governors Island in New York Harbor. Having been a military base for almost two centuries, it was closed to the public, so we got to go where most people weren’t allowed (it was finally opened up to the public in 2003). As we were returning to Manhattan, I took this picture from the bow.

 

 

 

August

42nd St and 8th Ave in Manhattan is a GREAT place to lose your front bumper on a rainy day.

 

 

 

October

As the rose’s life flashes before its eyes, the vegetarian lioness unhinges her jaw.

 

 

 

 

November

As far as I can figure out, this photo of me and my agent, Virginia Lohle, was taken at an after-show KISS party at Charlie O’s at Madison Square Garden on November 9 by Todd Kaplan.

He could have waited until Ginny and I finished chewing our food.

 

 

 

DONNA! This girl was absolutely my favorite model. She was gorgeous, funny and always had a twinkle in her eye. The only thing she was lacking (thankfully) was a nun’s sense of prudery.

She worked in a club in Lodi, NJ, called Satin Dolls, which – in a previous incarnation – was a rock club called The Candy Bar, which I used to hang out in. Later, it became nationally famous as The Bada Bing on The Sopranos.

These two pix were taken within two days of each other in the middle of November on my roof and in my living room. Fortunately, it was a warm day on the roof (thank you, weather gods!).

 

Short and sweet this year.

Speaking of S&S, this young lady was the traveling companion of someone I knew who drove up from Philadelphia. I don’t recall this companion’s name, but we hit it off amazingly well. Then she climbed this ladder onto my apartment’s roof, though I’m not sure why.

Maybe to show how ripped she was?

Unfortunately, it was a one-and-done deal and I never saw her again.

 

 

 

This event was a daytime performance in Times Square by Alice Cooper. This woman who came onstage had something to do with the Howard Stern Show and her main function seemed to be bouncing around and throwing Frisbees to the audience.

At least Alice was good.

 

 

 

While we’re on the subject of Times Square gore-fests, this event on a different day would have made a great opening act for Alice.

From my site:

Freddie Slashes tourist………yada, yada, yada……..ho hum. Film at 11.

 

 

 

From my site:

Great Falls Chasm Bridge, Paterson, NJ

I met Tamara when we were both shooting the Clash of the Titans tour (Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth, Alice in Chains) at the Orange County (NY) Speedway. She was cute, fun to be with, and has the distinction of being the only Jewish girl to fill me with Christmas spirit.

 

She didn’t have much respect for police line tape…………

 

 

…………but that was because she was so damn strong:

 

 

 

She even made me pose for this picture because there would be two reflections of her in my mirror shades.

 

 

 

The Miracle on 34th Street was that I didn’t get run over while getting this shot and using a tripod while standing in the middle of the street to capture the Empire State Building in its Christmas colors.

 

Alexander’s was a department store at the intersection of Routes 4 and 17 in Paramus, NJ, that was famous for a 200′ by 50′ mural by Stefan Knapp. The store had closed earlier in 1992, so I decided to take some pictures of it before it was disassembled into its original 280 panels and put into storage.

 

This is the main entrance to Holy Trinity Church in Hackensack, NJ, as seen from the side on a Spring day.

 

 

 

I was hired by Sony Japan to go on a mini-trip to Chicago and Atlanta with Sony publicists and Japanese journalists to shoot Public Enemy and Kris-Kross, respectively. I had never been to Chicago before (or since) and was only in Atlanta once before (the previous year with Sony to shoot Michael Bolton), so I wanted to get a little photo-flavor of these cities.

Unfortunately, my time in Chicago was limited (I was there for two days). I almost got to see/shoot a Mets/Cubs day game at Wrigley Field – which I would have loved – but then got a last-minute call to go with Sony, et al., to the University of Chicago for an impromptu afternoon press conference by Chuck D of Public Enemy.

Our hotel was very close to where Michigan Ave crosses the Chicago River, so I walked over there and got to shoot a rare sight: due to some repair work (I think), the road/bridge was in a raised position and blocked off by concrete barriers. I’m guessing it wasn’t a common occurrence, since there were people gathered at the periphery to watch the non-activity.

Using the fisheye lens, I was able to cram the whole scene, plus a lot of tall buildings into the shot. The crooked, illuminated STOP sign was the perfect centerpiece.

 

 

 

Having done the ground-level thing, I was determined to get to the nearby Hancock Center’s 94th-floor observatory the next day and got the fisheye shot of Lake Shore Drive, Oak Street Beach, the Gold Coast buildings and Lake Michigan. Fortunately, the weather cooperated both days and I’m lucky to have gotten what I did with so few shots (and little time to take them).

 

 

 

On to Atlanta!

Still in love with my fisheye, I was able to get a shot of the tall buildings surrounding me.

 

 

 

I’ve found online pictures of this entrance and it looks very straight/boxy, but the fisheye changed all that. When I shot this, my back was actually against the yellow pole you see at the top. And the guy standing near the door gives you some size perspective.

 

 

 

Inside, I THINK what this shot shows was in motion – kind of like a small production line, but for entertainment purposes.

If you come here, come here thirsty. There are soda dispensers giving free Coke soda of different flavors from all over the world and you feel compelled to try them all (well, at least I did).

 

 

 

A bit less-known in Atlanta than Coca-Cola is Tokyo Shapiro, which, to my surprise, did NOT feature any packets of oy sauce.

 

 

I live here. All the bricks on the roof and chimney damage were the result of an afternoon lightning strike. I was sitting in my living room on the other side of the wall right where the red X is when this happened.

It was pretty loud. Having my own door to the roof, I went out to see what happened. The bricks on the roof were still hot. In 2016, lightning hit the gray chimney, but on its non-visible right side. You’ll have to go to that year’s post for those pix/story.

 

 

 

These are my LONG-time friends, Frank and Elaine O’Toole. I was trying out a new long-exposure-painting-on-film lighting effect I came up with that involved someone dressed completely in flat black – including ski mask – who was standing behind them and moving a handful of Christmas tree lights in a circular motion. Pretty technical, huh?

I had an upcoming rooftop session scheduled with Dee Snider’s Widowmaker band and this was the test run………and this came out MUCH better. I love this shot!

 

 

 

On Halloween, I was busy with a project and didn’t want to be disturbed. I wasn’t.

 

 

 

What exotic place might this be? How about a puddle on my roof (and a blue filter on my fisheye lens)?

The historic facade of my building suffered a partial collapse in 2003 and is now flat because it was much cheaper to do that than to restore it, so this may be the best representation I have of it (and the reflection is a bonus).

Another ancient artifact is the TV antenna in the dark upper-right corner.

 

 

 

From my site:

I got this shot because a girl I didn’t know threw up on my sofa.

What, that’s not enough information for you? Oh, alright.

My friend brought her over for a shoot. She calmed her nerves with a little too much beer and later recycled it from the northern end onto my poor couch. She then asked me to shoot her wedding.

Make sense? Yeah – Sequitur City, right?

I got to the church early, liked the interior’s symmetry, put the fisheye lens on, and sat the camera on the floor.

So there you have it…………..from barfo to boffo.

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite pictures. My living room picture window faces a big municipal parking lot behind my building. Is there anything more boring than a picture of a parking lot? Yes! – taking that picture at night.

I have a Christmas Eve ritual unlike anyone else’s. On either side of my building is a church and both of them hold Christmas Eve services that begin at 8pm. Between 7:30 and 8, lots of cars pull into the central lot to park on the half that’s closest to their church.

Meanwhile, I’m 7 floors above them with my camera on a shortened tripod that’s perched on the window’s wide shelf. The camera’s shutter speed is maxed out at 30 seconds.

Did you ever see pictures of highways taken at night and all you see are solid streaks of red taillights or white headlights? Those are time exposures in which moving lights basically “paint” on the film while the shutter is open. That’s exactly what I’m doing here.

However, unlike a highway with a steady stream of cars and their lights, this is a lot more difficult because these cars are entering the lot sporadically and I have no idea where they’re going to park. When one car pulls in, I have to hit the shutter as soon as it does, because I’m hoping that it goes the length of the lot and turns one way or the other to park one lane closer to their church within those 30 seconds. That means that I’ll have a good shot in which white headlights turn into red taillights.

If the car parks right away in the central lane, I’ll have a short, boring, white light path.

This guesswork goes on fairly intensively for a half-hour and if I shot a full roll of 36, I’d be lucky to have 3 really good ones.

1992 was the first year I tried it and, although I’ve continued every year since, this shot from that initial year is by far the best I’ve ever gotten: two cars pulled in almost back-to-front, traversed the entire central lane and pulled into spaces in the opposite outer lanes (gotta love the semi-symmetry) – all within the 30 seconds and both providing nearly-perfect white-to red-transition (with some yellow sidelights connectivity).

It has been suggested that the car being driven on the side street maybe belonged to an atheist, but it’s clearly pulling into the parking lot. And what looks like a scratch in the upper left is actually light from the path of a plane that had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport in NYC.

And lest you think that I selectively hand-colored a black-and-white image to set off the car lights and the Peruvian restaurant in the background, take a look at what follows this pic. That’s the original 1992 slide. It took me a LOT of hours to remove all the other color, but I finished it in January, 2017, so it’s my 21st century makeover of my 20th century photo.

BTW – if you look closely, you can see some light glare in the original that reminds me that I never even opened the window to shoot that night. And if you’re wondering why the red taillights on the car on the right fade and then get brighter, the driver hit his brakes to park. It’s a little less obvious in the car on the left.

And if you look REALLY closely, you might find midtown Manhattan and the Empire State Building along the horizon that was curved by the fisheye lens.

 

 

 

 

 

I took this the day after the last concert I ever shot with the photo pass for the last band I ever shot. My last professional show was on October 9, 1992. I’ve done some fooling around since then with my little digital camera, but this turned out to be retirement day. That means all the hires and trips end here too, though I did get to take one special career-related trip in 1994 (see that year’s post).

Of course, I’ve been published ever since and just finished a string of four years in a row where my shots were used in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremonies – either in the program or onstage.

Now if only I could find someone with millions of dollars who wants a pretty cool music photography archive and who understands the value of full copyright………………..

 

 

You may have noticed my lack of a beard in the above photo – a rare occurrence (I’ve shaved it off twice since 1970).

I had a decent-looking photo taken in 1992, so if you’re tuning in from above, Mom, this one’s for you.

 

I hope He doesn’t mind me connecting my hammock to His steeple.

 

 

 

I can see this church from my apartment and I photograph it a lot. I’m not crazy about the quality of this particular image, but there are other pictures of this majestic-looking church on this blog and this makeover (and “quality”) provide a contrast.

 

 

 

The string’s the thing: in the hammock, in her top (what there is of it) and especially in the reflections in the mirror shades…………..that’s where you’re looking, right? RIGHT?

 

 

 

This is a trail in the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY.

 

 

 

Storm King contains what is perhaps the largest collection of contemporary outdoor sculptures in the United States. It is a major sculpture venue with works from some of the most acclaimed artists of the 20th century. Some of these works are HUGE. The site spans approximately 500 acres and is located about a one-hour drive north of Manhattan – well-worth the trip.

From my site:

Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY

It’s hard to tell from this shot, but this piece is almost 63 feet high.

 

 

From my site:

from my roof, Hackensack, NJ

Under the Red, White and Blue, Sears is temporarily red, white and blue.

 

 

 

My apartment sits by itself on the roof of an old apartment building. Normally, I shoot a lot from that roof, but for this shot I was up on the roof of the apartment to put me on a more equal plane with the steeple.

From my site:

“I tried to be clever and make the long string of a cloud appear to be coming out of the high-rise’s chimney, but took it a few seconds too late.”

Oh well………….even with that dismal failure, I still think it’s a pretty cool shot.

 

 

 

Plane hits plume. Film at 11 (I’ve GOT to stop saying that).

 

 

 

From my site:

One of my absolute favorite “from home” shots. Would you believe this was taken less than 10 miles from New York City?

The trees and the church’s cross (actually a double-cross on the Methodist Church at Summit Ave. and Passaic St.) are in Hackensack and the mountain (Garret Mountain) is in Paterson, 8-10 miles away.

Shot with a 600mm f/4 lens (borrowed from Minolta Corp. – thank you) on Kodachrome 64.

 

 

 

Remember that final career-related trip I mentioned back in the ’92 post?

It was a good one.

Bonhams of London held an auction of some of my work – complete with my own catalog – and flew me over there for the occasion.

When I’m asked for a brief description of my music photography archive, the reply is always “From Led Zeppelin to Liberace”, so that’s where the auction got its name.

The front cover of the catalog shows Jimmy Page from Zep (not my best shot of him) and the back cover shows Liberace (a little better shot).

 

 

This is an imperfect attempt at a double exposure on a slide of a nice sunset in the west and the moon in another part of the sky, taken perhaps a couple of hours later.

You have to frame the moon in the viewfinder where you think it will complement the sunset that’s already on the film. There are a few different reasons why this doesn’t work, but the main one is that the Earth’s clouds are behind the moon.

 

 

 

Although it’s much duller, this one works a bit better because it’s somewhat more believable, cloud-wise.

 

 

 

From my site:

I first saw the plane when it was at the bottom of the frame. I thought it might hit the moon, so I ran inside, got my camera, took test readings, and got this just in time.

Two things in my favor were the setting sun, which lit up the usually-unseen plane, and a lack of wind that kept the exhaust plumes intact.

 

 

 

“Batty Brits”

From my site:

Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NYC

British music collectibles expert Ted Owen and the lovely Denise Dickson bask in the glow of their first visit to Yankee Stadium.

 

 

 

“Home Run in the Right Field Corner”

From my site:

Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NYC

Here’s where my concert stop-action training came in handy.

If you look real close, the ball is actually on the fingertips of at least 3 people.

 

From my site:

As a storm leaves and the sun moves in, things look a little different.

 

 

 

 

 

From my site:

After their wedding at one of the 346 churches on my block, the couple and their photographer went across the street to newly-redesigned Anderson Park to do the wedding photos. I took this from my roof as the pair returned to the church.

And no, they’ve never seen this.

 

 

On a down note, you may have noticed that the pix are getting a little sparse. This is the year my mother became ill. She died in 1997. I was the caretaker/executor and was grateful that I lived very nearby and didn’t have my career to deal with. My siblings all helped out and I’m grateful for that too.

 

“CHEMO”

From my site:

Holy Name Hospital, Teaneck, NJ

Mom was a photographer too, so she had me document some of the things she had to go through on her way to Heaven.

 

 

 

This is about a mile away from me. I saw the sun setting and waited until it was behind the building’s framework and shot it through a bedroom window.

The building to its left is Hackensack Hospital (now Hackensack University Medical Center). The new building is part of HUMC and is known locally as 20 Prospect, where I’ve seen many doctors over the last two decades.

But I had no idea what it was then.

I’ve shown this picture to some of the medical personnel there and asked them if they know where this building is. They like the picture, but have no idea about its location.

“You’re standing in it.”

 

 

 

From my site:

This doesn’t look like much, but it’s actually a pretty cool shot! Remember the Hale-Bopp comet? That’s what that streaking white dot is.

I had tried earlier to get this comet on film from my roof, using a tripod – no luck. One night, I just set the camera up on my kitchen counter and aimed it where I thought the comet was and left the shutter open for 30 seconds and got it. While the shutter was open, a plane was coming in for a landing at nearby Teterboro Airport and its lights streaked across the frame, adding some much-needed color.

 

 

 

More plane lights from Teterboro streak across the sky as 5 lightning bolts – mostly blocked from view by a large storm cloud – streak down from it (the sky – not the plane). Shot from home.

 

I acquired a couple of interesting items in 1998. In ascending order, they are:

– an 8.5′ by 3′ Super Bowl XXVIII (1993) hanging, heavy-vinyl, double-sided street banner from Atlanta (the Super Bowl was held in the Georgia Dome that year). Apparently, only 200 were made.

In ’98, I attended an auction in North Carolina and this was hanging on a side wall of the room. I had my eye on it, but it turned out to not be a part of the auction. I didn’t know that as the auction wrapped up and I shouted out, “Hey – what about that banner?”

“You want that?”

“Yeah”

The auctioneer snickered as he offered it to me for $25, thinking I’d never pay that much. No one else wanted it at that price, so I grabbed it. I think it’s well worth it.

Note: as I write this, there are a couple of these on eBay with asking prices as high as $140. Doesn’t mean they will sell for that, but that’s what some people value them at.

 

 

 

– an “Al’s Garage Band Goes on a World Tour” pinball machine – one of 1,000 made by Alvin G and Company. I got it at an auction in Bergenfield, NJ, when a roller rink closed. Their auction ad only said “pinball machines”, but not which ones, so I went. When I saw this one, I was determined that no one else would get it………….and no one else did.

I had no idea how I was gonna get this thing home (and up to the 7th floor), but then I met the rink’s pinball mechanic, who was now out of a job and offered to deliver the unit fairly inexpensively after I told him I would need a good pinball mechanic.

Turns out I DID need him a little bit too often, but it also turns out that that was because he wasn’t a great pinball mechanic and had to keep making trips back for no money to make things right.

He finally just disappeared, the machine fell into disrepair and I sold it to a pinball machine restorer who was VERY eager to get his hands on this rare machine. I’m told he fixed it up well and loves it. I’m glad.

This machine was a BLAST when it worked and if you like pinball and ever get a chance to get your hands on a good Al’s, grab it.

 

 

 

– a limited edition (maybe 50?), signed (maybe 10?) Rolling Stones 1994 tour jacket AND a Keith Richards-signed Telecaster (he wrote “Keith Richards BTB/98″ – BTB refers to the band’s 1998 “Bridges to Babylon” tour). The jacket was signed by Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie. Except for Charlie’s, these were great sigs.

Ignoring an original Led Zeppelin “The Object”, these items were – by far – the coolest rock items I’ve ever owned. How I acquired them is a pretty interesting story.

I retired from concert-shooting in 1992 and spent significant time after that trying to collect some non-payments and especially trying to recover some very valuable original slides that were never returned by a number of magazines.

Here’s how that all worked. Each month, magazines would call the photographers with a list of whatever photos were needed for that month. We would send in or deliver them in person to the magazines. Since I live so close to NYC – where many of the magazines were based – I would put together a couple of lists and run around the city delivering them in one day.

After the photo editor made his selections, I took out one of my two-page delivery memos that made a copy when you wrote on it, wrote all the accepted photos/slides down and had him sign it.

One of the common clauses in music photographers’ delivery memos was that if an original slide or negative was lost or damaged, the magazine was liable for a minimum of $1,500 each ($2,500 each if it was a rare one that couldn’t be replaced by shooting something similar on the next tour).

Some mags lost a bunch of my slides and never paid for them, but the editor of one of them had a conscience. He didn’t have the money, but wanted to know if I wanted “stuff” instead. As editor, he was given lots of highly-desirable goodies. He already had the jacket and was promised the signed guitar after he did (and published) an interview with Keith. He delivered the jacket in 1997 and the guitar in 1998.

So now the question was what do I do with these things? How should I display them properly? The only workable idea I could come up with that incorporated both items was to get a mannequin with moveable arms that could wear the jacket and play – or at least hold – the guitar.

I went into Manhattan with a pickup-truck-owning friend and found one with a beautiful stand (most were pretty ugly) for $250. My guitar-meister friend, Danny Shea, gave me the skulls strap, which was perfect, and I topped it off with a leather Yankees cap.

So now I had a new 7-foot-tall roommate – Keef Leafe – who stood by my front door. It was the first thing anyone saw when they walked in.

About 8 years later, I sold the jacket and guitar and the former Keef Leafe now sports my old long-fringed leather jacket, a Western-looking hat that I think is Australian and a cool-looking yellow Strat lookalike with holes (shown in the 2000 post). He kept the skulls strap.

There’s a picture of this now-nameless guy in the 2008 post.

 

Before we get to the Yankees……..

This was taken from my roof.

 

 

 

Now on to the good stuff.

The story, as reported on bobleafe.com:

“A great day!

I decided to treat myself to a Yankees-Mets interleague game via NY Waterways ferry, which left from Weehawken, NJ in the morning, went south down the Hudson River, around The Battery (southern tip of Manhattan), and then north up the East and Harlem Rivers to Yankee Stadium.”

At that point, these pictures start.

On a crossover bridge from the dock to the Stadium, I took this pre-game shot (it’s even got a blimp).

 

 

 

Kenny Rogers performed before the game, though I’m hard-pressed to identify that figure as Kenny Rogers, who I have photographed before.

 

 

 

This is another shot where removing most of the color made it much more interesting (as if that guy didn’t stand out enough in the crowd). This update occurred in 2016.

 

 

 

All of the rest of the shots are post-game and are pretty much self-explanatory except for maybe which two bridges are in the Statue of Liberty shot (Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge) and the Brooklyn Bridge shot, taken right after we rode under it.

In the first one, you can see two boatloads of fans in front of us. Actually, I’m not really sure if the third from the last one was taken on the way to or from the Stadium. In either case, the boat stopped at South Street Seaport, which made for an interesting photo op from the boat.

 

 

 

Another question mark. This one HAS to be out of sequence because this is a Hudson River view (the Chrysler Building is to the left [north] of the Empire State Building). That might make it a morning view since there’s no sun on the facing building sides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last shot from that trip is one of my favorites. From my site:

“As we swung past the World Trade Center on the return trip in the late afternoon, I took this with a fisheye lens and an orange filter.”

Included in the photo are the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge and a sailboat between the Twin Towers.