The inspiration for the Dennis Hopper photojournalist character in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, British combat photographer Tim Page, has died. Page led a very adventurous life. Among many other things, he was declared dead in Vietnam until a mortuary attendant(!) realized he wasn't; his best friend was Errol Flynn's son Sean, who disappeared while on assignment and has never been seen since; and he was at the infamous Doors concert in New Haven when Jim Morrison was arrested for obscenity. If you'd like to read about the whole Vietnam scene, check out Dispatches by Mike Herr—that is, if you can't find Page's own out-of-print memoir, Page After Page. (Page is first mentioned on p. 7 of Dispatches.)
There is a good and thorough obituary of Tim Page at The Guardian, which reports that he was open about his struggles with PTSD and was an activist against the use of landmines, which would make perfect sense even if one of them didn't nearly kill him. He spent his later life in Australia. Tim Page was 78.
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San Francisco photographer Fred Lyon, whose book San Francisco Noir has been our Book o' the Week for a bit now, also died recently. For many years he was a "first call" photographer when one was needed in San Francisco, and he energetically documented the city as an art photographer in addition to his fashion and professional work. There is a fine obituary of Fred at SFGate. He was 97.
Mike
(Thanks to Andy Wilkes, Kenneth Tanaka, and Robert Edelman)
Book o' the Week
Fred Lyon, San Francisco Noir. "The version [of San Francisco] that Fred Lyon celebrates in his new book is a classic San Francisco full of smoky jazz clubs, neon lights in the fog and sharply dressed men and women stepping on and off of trolley cars. Made mostly during the 1950s and '60s, Lyon's images are big on atmosphere and style, and hit many parts of the city that visitors love." (PDN)
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Featured Comments from:
Richard Alton: "Fred Lyon? Never heard of him. What a revelation though—thanks for bringing him to my notice."
Dan Khong: "I met Tim when he visited Singapore at the invitation of Leica Asia Pacific. He showed a series of his 'Nam pictures. He was living in Australia. Quite sad to see such an illustrious war photographer slowing drifting into the sunset."
Martin Pallett: "Nottingham, April 1995. Tim Page was promoting his new book Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden at Waterstones book shop. My mate, Nige, worked there, and I attended Tim Page's talk; Nige said to stick around so that we could have drinks with him after the shop closed, so I tagged along with the shop folk. Not long after sitting down, Mr. Page lit up a 'cigarette' (it was still OK to smoke in pubs back then) and it was a moment later that the odour of burning rope permeated the back room and we noticed the oily smoke rising: he had a licence to smoke marijuana due to the injuries sustained over the years: it was an 'interesting' pub session to say the least! If there is afterlife, I hope he meets up with Flynn, Stone, and the rest of his folk: peace be upon him."
Oh man, this sucks. I have Page's book, cleverly titled, "Page After Page" which is a page (OK, not so clever) turner for Walter Mitty wannabe photo journalists like I was in my 30s.
Additionally it was made into a multi part docudrama on A&E called "Frankie's House" which was a bastardized version of a Vietnamese pronunciation of the staging location for the P.J.s covering the war.
Page was also part of a duo with his second being Sean Flynn, son of screen legend Earl Flynn. Flynn disappeared on a shoot and Page (for years) desperately tried to learn his fate. Unless something changed, it's still unsolved.
Not many of my influencers are still around.
Posted by: Albert Smith | Friday, 02 September 2022 at 04:50 PM
Unfortunate, but interesting, timing for me. Like the earlier commenter, I hadn't heard of Lyon, but I swap photo books with a friend in another state, and in the last shipment he included SF Noir and San Francisco: Portrait of a City. I liked the latter, although it felt as though my reaction to the book was more nostalgia for a city that no longer exists (I used to live in the city).
SF Noir, on the other hand, had much more of an impact on me. Even though not all the images were taken in the shadows or at night -- as one might expect in a book of the title -- there was a theme to the book that coalesced quite nicely, and the layout was well done. There's very good, and inventive work there, and worth seeing.
Sad to see him leave this plane, but hopefully (like Fred Herzog, portraitist of old Vancouver, who I discovered only months after his passing), he'll live on, and maybe even find a few new followers.
Posted by: rick lepage | Friday, 02 September 2022 at 05:12 PM
Interesting camera slung over Tim's right shoulder...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Chisholm | Saturday, 03 September 2022 at 04:14 AM
I met Mr. Lyon a couple years before-Pandemic, and he was still engaging with his fans and signing books. It was at a public event, so I didn't get to talk to him. More people should know his work.
Posted by: Richard Man | Wednesday, 07 September 2022 at 05:50 AM