Flew to Frankfurt yesterday afternoon to shoot Keith Richards. It was baking - arrived at the Commerbank Stadium at 5pm. It was surrounded by people eating sausages with mustard. I called John Bionelli to see if he was still in town, he'd left for Munich. 'But it could be a bunch of Russ Irwin fans eating his leftovers'.
I am taken into the bowels of the stadium, given my own room and asked what I'd like - guitars etc. As soon as I set up in comes Keith. He was easy and I mean really easy, considering where he is in the league of rockstardom. Keith did what ever I asked of him, he was a joy. He had a thin postwar spiv-style moustache - reminded me of Sid James in a Carry On film, up to no good in a mischievious way. Shot him with his 1920's Martin acoustic on which he writes all his songs, and with his 1953 Fender Telecaster. I think I got a nice portrait holding his fedora to finish, I'll have to wait till I see the film (yes, I shot it on film, vintage like Keith). He thanked me for coming.
don't miss the other Frankfurt shots on his site (they're mislabelled, but clearly from Frankfurt): [www.rosshalfin.co.uk] and Halfin's older ones of Keith, if folks haven't seen them: [www.rosshalfin.co.uk]
"the worse [Keith] looks, the better he photographs"