UNPAINTED FACES  – HENRY DILTZ

By Harvey Sid Fisher

Hollywood,CA(HollywoodToday)12/19/11/—Unpainted Faces contains  more than 116 black and white raw as-is photographs; sans makeup, lighting or pic trickery. The subjects are mostly music performers who I grew up with;  Janis, Jimi, Joni, Jackson, James, Jagger…and that’s just the J’s.

You can call this a book of photographs; a portfolio,  a pictorial collection, artsy coffee table portraiture, or whatever you fancy, but me, dude, I gotta call this my family album.

The experts and connoisseurs  of the clickety click click can opine on whatever talent or genius the photographer, Henry Diltz, possesses.  They can talk exposure and lighting and the perfect soul-capturing moment et al.

I’m just into this book totally for the sentiment; the visceral connection to the musical memories that were conjured. The blood of music is thicker than the smell of developer.

Judging my harmonic family by analyzing their  grain and composition would leave out too much of what lies beneath.

I could never defend against the volume of bias that would rise up to smite my objectivity. Besides, on a technical level, I would not know the difference between a Diltz and a Degas.

In the back of the book there is a page number and name for each of the photographs with a bit of  Henry Diltz’s subject description:

#38. Richard Pryor did not want to get out of bed. He wanted to be photographed while he was sleeping.

#64. Ray Charles is shown in a recording studio that he designed himself.

‘He knew every inch of the building and said it was the only place he could see.’

#54. ‘Jim Morrison wanted to know all the meanings of life.

He went to sleazy bars and bought old men drinks to get them to talk while he sat and listened with just the hint of a smile on his face.’

#94. ‘Neil Young bought a house in Malibu that burned down before he moved in.’

And here is a surprising subject description of photo entry #27  that jumped out at me. It was written by the photographer, Henry Diltz, about Henry Diltz.

Paul McCartney’s group, Wings, had a party aboard the Queen Mary about 1979. Diltz was invited as a friend and here he writes about it:

#27. QUEEN MARY, WINGS PARTY

‘I snuck my camera into the McCartney party on the Queen Mary and photographed my friends at our table.

Another photographer, Sam Emerson, had been hired to take pictures at the party and when he saw my flash go off he came running over to scold me and said he would tell Linda.  I said, “Go ahead,” and kept flashing.

My wife is in the middle (of photo #27 with four other guests) blowing the hair out of her eyes. We had a great time drinking and laughing.’

So why does this jump out at me?

Diltz sneaks his camera into the Paul McCartney private party and takes pictures of his friends and fellow guests at the table.

It was a paparazzi-like thing to do but it’s not a terrible wrong.

After all, he did not crash the party. He was an invited guest; a friend of Paul and Linda’s. And I have to commend him on his self control if all he did was take pictures of the people at his table when there were all these pay-per-view celebrities milling about. Who could resist such monumental temptation? Kudos for that, Henry.

Then Sam Emerson, the party photographer who was hired to be the only one to take pictures, sees the flash of Diltz’s camera. Sam goes up to Diltz and scolds him for breaking the  no-camera rule and says he will tell Linda (McCartney). Diltz says, “Go ahead.” and keeps shooting.

That could read as a friendly insouciant dismissal or a hefty slap in the face. Maybe there was some previous problem between Sam and Diltz.

Maybe it was professional rivalry, some long standing feud, bad chemistry or just the booze acting up and Diltz was feeling Diltzy.

Diltz ends his description of the event by saying,  “We had a great time drinking and laughing”. Still, I have no problem with any of this. No punches were thrown. Personalities altercate all the time. No big deal.  It was basically a non-event.

Sam Emerson, where are you?  Oh there you are. I found Sam Emerson and asked him to comment on Dilt’z story. Sam said it was all true.  “Paul McCartney and Linda were adamant that I be the only camera at the party so that they could totally own and control  the photographs that were presented to the public”.

Harvey Sid Fisher

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