Chalkie Davies’s best photograph: the Specials in Paris
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Version 0 of 1. I took this in Paris in 1980, the morning after the Specials played a gig just outside the city. It’s the band with some of their English fans. They’d needed a lift back into town after the gig and had just jumped on the group bus. A couple of them didn’t have anywhere to stay, so Jerry Dammers – the Specials frontman who’s got the missing teeth – had let them stay in his hotel room. He slept on the floor. I was waiting outside the next morning when this magic moment occurred. There’s an awful lot going on: the immigrant guy on the left selling stuff, the guy pushing a pram, the guy on the right looking over wondering what all this is. The man in the shades is Frank Murray, the band’s tour manager, who went on to look after the Pogues. The Specials were my favourite band. Seven personalities in a group of seven – you don’t often see that. Their fans are still very loyal. If you go to one of their gigs, it will be full of 50- to 60-year-old men with their 25-year-old kids, all dressed the same. They’re like Osmonds fans. Jerry had a vision from the very beginning. He was behind the whole 2 Tone movement, bringing politics into music. He said something I thought was amazing: “I don’t think protest music even has to have lyrics.” When I went to shoot the cover for More Specials, the band’s second LP, Jerry told me: “I’ll meet you in this odd little bar in Leamington Spa.” We get there, and it’s just the group sitting around having a beer, nothing clever or anything. He comes in and says: “Can you take a bad picture?” I asked what he meant and he said: “You know, an out of focus picture? Like a King Tubby sleeve, a Jamaican sleeve. Make it look real.” So I did. This shot was for the first issue of the Face magazine, which had the Specials on the cover, but it was never published. Jerry’s never seen it. Not yet. I didn’t find it till about three years ago and when I did it felt like I’d found a real photograph: I left rock’n’roll behind in 1988 and moved into advertising photography, so now 90% of what I do is fake. I switched because I realised I was no longer playing the records of the bands I was working for. I thought that was criminal. People never understood what I meant when I said I’d rather be a real photographer than a rock photographer. When you’re shooting stars, people automatically think a photo is good if they recognise the person in it. And that’s not always the case. CV Born: Cardiff, 1955. Studied: “Never studied photography. Worked as an aircraft engineer then moved into photography aged 19.” Influences: “Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, David Bailey, Helmut Newton.” High: “Working for Apple, doing packaging and adverts, from 1998 to 2003. I learned more working for Steve Jobs than I did for anyone else.” Low: “Giving up rock’n’roll photography. But it was for the right reasons.” Advice: “Take fewer pictures. I see people with digital cameras deleting shots as they take them. Just don’t take those shots.” Interview by Jenny Stevens |