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    The Olympus Trip
    The Olympus Trip
    The Olympus Trip
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    The Olympus Trip

    By Robert Twigg

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    About this ebook

    The Olympus Trip is the story of how a young hospital porter in Yorkshire followed his dream and became the assistant to one of the world's greatest photographers, David Bailey. From Northern obscurity to traveling the world, meeting and working with extraordinary people, from Paul McCartney to Harrison Ford, David Bowie to Marie Helvin. The Olympus Trip is one young mans amazing, life changing story.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Twigg
    Release dateApr 28, 2016
    ISBN9781311928429
    The Olympus Trip

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      Book preview

      The Olympus Trip - Robert Twigg

      All enquiries connect@roberttwigg.com First published 2016

      Copyright © Robert Twigg

      The right of Robert Twigg to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Any unauthorised or restricted act in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

      This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without prior consent.

      Published by Robert Twigg at Smashwords

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      The Olympus Trip

      by

      Robert Twigg

      (an account of being David Bailey’s assistant, traveling the world, meeting famous and interesting people and shooting them)

      Contents

      Chapter 1 - Exodus

      Chapter 2 - Trial

      Chapter 3 - Home Sweet Home

      Chapter 4 - Italian Vogue: Haiti

      Chapter 5 - 177: Portraits

      Chapter 6 - Holborn Studios: Roger Street

      Chapter 7 - April in Paris

      Chapter 8 - Nine to Five

      Chapter 9 - Holborn 2

      Chapter 10 - Barbados

      Chapter 11 - St. Ives

      Chapter 12 - Around the World in 80 Beers

      Chapter 13 - Over the Sea to Skye

      Chapter 14 - Stand by Your Beds

      Chapter 15 - Sticky Fingers

      Chapter 16 - Tahiti

      Chapter 17 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

      Chapter 18 - Ripping Yarns

      Chapter 19 - Guns and Noses

      Chapter 20 - Goodbye Baby, and Amen

      Dedication

      Chapter 1

      Exodus

      The young man lifted the attic window and propped it open. He leaned on the sill and stared despondently out. It was a miserable, drizzling day. Row after row of small terraced houses marched down the hill, grey slate roofs eventually dissolving into the low cloud. The attic floor, and indeed the young man, stood in stark contrast to the world outside. The carpet was littered with album covers and magazines, the young man wore his hair long, silver nail varnish and electric blue eye liner. David Bowie, Eno, Lou Reed and Roxy Music stared out from their glossy covers, from worlds the young man could only dream of. Others did more than just dream. His friend and fellow hospital porter, Phil Oakey, was forming a group, even a neighbour’s noisy son, somebody called Joe Elliot was forming a band. It seemed to the young man that almost everyone he knew had an escape plan... but where was his?

      the only photograph to survive... thankfully

      Closing the window I sat cross legged on the floor and picked a magazine from amongst the record covers. I flipped through to the dog eared centre pages. It was not what the average eighteen year old might be expected to read in the privacy of his Yorkshire bedroom. The magazine was English Vogue and the pages I kept returning to, time after time, were a series of black and white fashion pictures, the models in looming, atmospheric woodland. The images haunted me and I knew that if I could escape it would not be into the music world, it would be into fashion photography. Time and time again I stared at the pages and every time, without fail, my eye was drawn inexorably to the bottom of each page, to the tiny white letters that spelled out the photographers name; David Bailey. Bowie filled my ears but Bailey captured my imagination, Bailey was who I wanted to be. But it was only a dream. After all, how does a hospital porter in Sheffield become a fashion photographer in London? I had no idea, no idea at all...

      I took the long, slow, boring route of a foundation course in art followed by a photography course at Birmingham Polytechnic. In practical terms neither course gave me what I wanted, however I met three people who would feature large in the coming months and years, fellow students Rob and Mart and the best lecturer I have ever met, Martin Harrison. Despite working only one day a week at the college Martin spoke with authority about the real world of fashion photography having been a Vogue studio assistant in the 60’s. Even more amazingly he knew Bailey, he knew Helmut Newton, he genuinely knew and had been part of the real world of fashion photography. That world though was still a million miles away.

      I had expected Birmingham to be a quantum leap from Sheffield. It wasn’t. The School of Photography was in decline, so much so that by time I was in the third year the first and second years had been closed down. I learned a bit about photography and a great deal about table football. After college, and a short spell as a junior general photographer in Birmingham, my wife Julia and I took the plunge and moved to London. I had no job but I was keen and insanely confident, insanely being the operative word. A rapid succession of assisting and studio manager jobs led precisely nowhere and I soon discovered that I was far from being the genius I hoped I was. To add insult to injury most photographers also thought that at 26 I was too old to be an assistant. I knew then that college had been a bad idea and I should have gone straight to London.

      Martin Harrison

      It’s often said that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know and thankfully I had kept in touch with Martin Harrison and through him the artist Brian Clarke. When there seemed to be no hope Brian introduced me to his agent who needed a hand re-establishing his gallery in Cork St. Well I knew next to nothing about fine art but I knew Martin and Brian so I got the job.

      The job in question was assistant to a chap called Robert Fraser. All I knew about Robert was that he was incredibly posh, used to have a gallery on Cork Street in the 60 ‘s and now had a broken leg. On my first day I picked Old Etonian Robert up in my ice blue Mk3 Cortina Estate. One leg in plaster, Robert lounged across the back seat as I weaved through traffic from Piccadilly to Soho Square. Robert rambled on but I was mesmerised by his accent; he had the poshest voice I had ever heard (which wasn’t saying much at that time) but I do remember thinking that he could give the Queen elocution lessons. At our destination I helped Robert to hobble up to the first floor. A door opened and my life changed in the blink of an eye. Linda McCartney had opened the door and Paul was sat at a desk behind her. We were in MPL... McCartney Productions Ltd... and Linda was asking me if I would like a cup of tea. The rest of the meeting was a total blur but I was already seeing my new posh boss in a very different light.

      Robert was close friends with Keith Richards, had been arrested along with Mick Jagger in the sixties on drugs bust, had been instrumental in the careers of Peter Blake, Gilbert and George and Andy Warhol, to name a very few, and had hosted John Lennon’s 1968 exhibition, ‘You Are Here’. McCartney is quoted as calling him ‘one of the most influential figures of the sixties’; he was a truly amazing and wonderful character and, in the few months I worked for him, I learnt a great deal about art but even more about life.

      As the weeks turned into months and I started to feel comfortable in the galleries and auction houses of Mayfair and had resigned myself to never being a photographer. The art world was more exciting than I could ever have imagined and I knew there were far worse jobs. One day we had a meeting scheduled at Air Studios which were then off Oxford St, Robert had been retained to advise Linda on a new photographic book. We were shown into a small room where Linda greeted

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