Allan Tannenbaum's photography career began almost by accident. A nice Jewish boy, he was born in 1945 in New Jersey and raised in the relatively conservative atmosphere of the 1950s and even began studying engineering. But then came the 1960s, and Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," became a must-read for every young American, including Tannenbaum. And so in 1964, after two years of college, he decided he had had enough and it was time to drive a 1940 Studebaker across the United States.
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"California was just 'happening' at the time, and places like Los Angeles and San Francisco were too appealing," Tannenbaum recalled. "I brought my parents' camera and went on a journey across the country, at the end of which I arrived in San Francisco and lived there for a while. During this time I made a living from and taught myself photography.
"During this time, I realized that photography was my true calling, so more or less in the mid-60s I returned to New York, put together a portfolio, and started going to newspapers and offering my services, but that did not go so well. At the same time, I worked as a taxi driver and hung out in clubs, mainly in the SoHo area, which was the cultural and artistic center of New York at that time. I got to know artists, philosophers, and musicians, and by and large I enjoyed life and continued to photograph as much as I could, for example, Jimi Hendrix in concert, and more.
"One night at Kenn's Broome Street Bar, I saw a stack of 'Soho Weekly News' on top of a cigarette vending machine. Back then, it was a small eight-page newspaper, which covered the cultural and art scene of the neighborhood, which had just become a significant part of the world cultural scene as well. I got very excited, went to the editor, walked into his office, and said, 'Hello, I want to photograph.' The editor took my portfolio, stopped at Hendrix's pictures, and muttered, 'Okay, you know how to take pictures, I'll pay you $40 a week.' I left his office and said 'YES, this is it!'"
Within a few years, "SoHo News" became a respected culture magazine and Tannenbaum got to photograph some of the most well-known artists of the world, including musicians and bands like the Rollings Stones, John Lennon with Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, the Clash and the Ramones, and artists such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.
An exhibition featuring approximately 200 original works of Haring's is currently being held in Herzliya, with Tannenbaum having been invited as the guest of honor.
"Since in SoHo and Manhattan in general everyone in the art and culture scene knew everyone, I had free and direct access to the backstage of reputed clubs like Studio 54 and The Bottom Line", Tannenbaum said. "In 1973, I went to the editor of the magazine and asked to be the owner of the negatives of the photos I took. To my surprise, he agreed, and also made me the chief photo editor of the magazine."
A few years later, as the club scene began to die down, Tannenbaum decided to transition into news photography.
"The New York scene has faded a bit and I felt that I wanted new thrills and also to develop in another field of photography," he said. "The photographs I saw from major events around the world filled me with inspiration, and I really wanted to be a part of it.
"At that time, in the late 1970s, I already had some renown as a photographer. I approached the New York branch of the Sygma photo agency, offered my services, and they agreed. We had a deal that if they sent me to an event, they would pay for the expenses, and if I suggested an event and the photos were good, they would pay, but if the photos were bad, that would be on me.
"That's how I started traveling around the whole world. I photographed, for example, a terrible disaster of a volcanic eruption in Colombia that buried a town of 25,000 people, the never-ending caravans of refugees fleeing Rwanda, the American forces in the invasion of Iraq during the Gulf War, and Nelson Mandela being released from prison and waving with his wife Winnie."
As a Jew, Tannenbaum felt a special connection to Israel and visited the country many times and became close to well-known Israeli photographers Ziv Koren and the late David Rubinger.
"I think that all in all, I've spent about a year in Israel," he said. "I photographed demonstrations in support of the peace agreement with Egypt here, but also the events of the Intifada in the territories. In the late 1980s, there was a time when I knew the streets of Ramallah and Nablus better than my neighborhood in New York."
And even today, at the age of 78, nothing is holding Tannenbaum back. He presents his works at exhibitions worldwide, sells prints, gives lectures, and travels around the world, without ever removing his Canon camera from his neck.
"Something can always happen around here, so I want to be prepared," he said.
When asked whether the role of a photojournalist was still relevant in the digital age, where photos and videos from events are distributed globally in real-time, Tannenbaum smiled and replied, "True, today it is much more immediate, and I am very happy that I had the opportunity to photograph for most of my career before the age of smartphones. But even now I think there is no substitute for the eye of a professional photojournalist. They will always know how to find the most interesting angle, oftentimes at great personal risk, and bring readers and viewers added value that ordinary citizens in these areas do not know how to bring."
The Black Box exhibition featuring Haring's works has already appeared in New York, Florida, and Italy.
Haring has gone down in history as one of the world's most prominent pop art artists. Having died of AIDS-related complications at the age of 31 in 1990, he's been the subject of several international retrospectives and his works can be seen in the exhibitions and collections of major museums around the world.
"I met Keith and photographed him in his studio, painting murals outdoors, and at his gallery exhibitions," Tannenbaum recalled. "Since he actually worked while filming, I didn't have to ask for too much. The colorful background of the paintings, along with his special character as a person, just did the job."
Tannenbaum recalled photographing James Brown, saying, "We were shooting a studio portrait and as a big fan I wanted to get some less formal shots. At one point I said to James, 'Let's go outside.' We were walking down Broadway, I asked him to jump – and the frame happened."
As part of his work for "SoHo News" magazine, Tannenbaum visited all the prestigious clubs in New York, including backstage.
"Two of my best photos were taken in these clubs," he said, smiling. "And both of them feature Mick Jagger, of course. I took the first one at a chance meeting between him and Dolly Parton in the dressing room of the well-known club The Bottom Line, and the second, with the whole band, at the Danceteria club. In the second meeting, you see that Keith Richards is holding a bottle of Jack Daniels, and when they got up to perform he left the bottle there. I immediately 'slipped' it into my camera bag and took it home and enjoyed it for the rest of the night."
"I met Andy Warhol in the New York club scene already in the 1970s, from clubs like Studio 54 and others, I've always loved photographing him, and one of his photos that I like best is the photo with the singer of the band Blondie, Debbie Harry, with whom he had a special, artistic and personal relationship.
"And he also once said about her, 'If I could choose a face for myself, I would choose hers.' This photo also shows the use of the 'innovative technology', a Commodore computer with which Warhol worked, when on the screen you see a drawing he made of Debbie's face and in the background other drawings of her, the fruit of his fertile imagination."
"I was lucky and had the great pleasure of photographing John and Yoko several times, including nude shots in their bed and also on the streets of New York. The photograph at the entrance to the prestigious Dakota apartment building in Manhattan, where they lived, became very special for me because only a few months after I took it, John was murdered in the exact same place. Both John and Yoko were people who loved the camera and devoted themselves to it, and as a photographer, you couldn't ask for more".
"I heard about Nelson Mandela a long time before he was released from prison, of course. And for me, he was a symbol of human rights and the rights of black people in the world. I visited South Africa when he was imprisoned and documented the riots there, and when he was about to be released – I knew it was an event I could not miss. Upon his leaving prison, thousands of people gathered and it was very difficult to squeeze through the crowd and get a good angle, but in the end, I managed to take a picture that is considered quite iconic, where you see Mandela and his wife Winnie waving and celebrating the joy of freedom and the victory of freedom."
Recalling the Gulf War, Tannenbaum said, "We were in Kuwait with a lot of media people, and I decided that I would get a jeep and join the forces of the US Army. Together with a Dutch journalist, we managed to do this and simply drove by the advancing forces in the desert. The photo I took symbolizes for me the two 'ships of the desert' that joined together – the camels with the humps, who didn't quite understand what happened, and the war machines made of steel that rushed forward."
The eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz stratovolcano in Tolima, Colombia, on November 13, 1985, buried the town of Armero, killing 20,000 residents and destroying 29,000 buildings in the process.
"As soon as I heard about this disaster, I knew I had to go there," Tannenbaum recalled. "I saw some of the most difficult sights I've ever seen in my life there. Thousands of bodies were pulled from the mud and entire villages disappeared under it.
In the photo I took there was a glimmer of hope because the girl, Omaira Sanchez, who was trapped there was alive, but I cannot forget the despair and sadness on her face." When I went back the next day, she was dead.
For Tannenbaum, the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, began with kissing his wife in their Manhattan apartment, when they heard the roar of jet engines and a loud bang as suddenly a massive explosion shook the air. "We looked out of the window and saw a huge fireball on one of the twin towers," he recalled. "Without even thinking about it twice or understanding the magnitude of the event, I grabbed my cameras and ran there, six blocks away from my house."
"There were crowds of people running in front of me who were running away from the inferno, but I ran toward it. I took a lot of pictures in this attack, including the second plane hitting the tower and the buildings going up in flames. But one picture stuck in my memory in particular, of firefighter Tim Duffy, who was at home when the attack happened, donned his heavy equipment and rode to the scene on his Harley Davidson to assist the citizens. After that, I met with Tim and we became friends."
At the signing ceremony of the Cairo Agreement Tannenbaum arrived with all of the world media.
"I remember very well what happened minutes before the signing, when Yasser Arafat suddenly did not want to sign and only relented after he was greatly pressured. In the photo I took you can see that Rabin is not really happy with the situation, and also on the faces of [Hosni] Mubarak, [Shimon] Peres, and Arafat you can see some concern".
In the spring of 1979, just before the signing of the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt on the lawns of the White House, Tannenbaum was on a press tour of Israel.
"They took us as a group to all kinds of places like Masada and the Dead Sea and one evening when we were in Tel Aviv I was a little bored, and I decided to separate from the group and go see what was interesting in the city. I knew that the peace agreement with Egypt was about to be signed and passers-by told me that there was a demonstration of support, so I went there and discovered thousands of people with signs. Today, I can say that when there are leaders of stature, history can still be made in any field, even when it seems impossible."
"As a photographer, I have always been drawn to battle scenes and disasters, and when the First Intifada broke out, I had no other option but to go cover the events. The night before this photo was taken, we were told that it was going to be wild in Nablus, but the IDF declared the city a closed military area. It wasn't my first time in the territories, and with the help of Palestinian friends I sneaked into the city with another photographer and we went to the mosque. It was at noon on a Friday, and when the worshipers came out – all hell broke loose. One of the moments that I photographed and that stuck in my head was when some soldiers dragged a Palestinian boy who was throwing stones to arrest him, in all the fire and inferno around. It was crazy."
"I had never photographed Jack Nicholson before, so I was quite excited about the opportunity. But the ice quickly broke when we discovered that we had both been born in New Jersey and exchanged experiences about the familiar places where we grew up. In photographing him, I tried to convey the atmosphere of madness that he broadcasts in this film, as in his other previous films, for example, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and I think that behind the serious face he makes in the picture there is definitely something hidden from the 'madness' he brings to the screen and his powerful presence."
In March 1980, after they released their masterpiece album "London Calling", The Clash band arrived for a well-publicized concert tour in the US. Many members of the media were already waiting for them at the airport, but Tannenbaum chose an unconventional approach.
"I waited at the exit, where I knew the taxi taking the band would pass, and as they passed me I shouted to lead singer Joe Strummer: 'Joe, turn around!' He stuck his head out the window and smiled, and I got a great picture. By the way, in a new film of the Clash arriving at JFK, there's a shot of Joe Strummer entering a Checker cab. There's one camera flash. It was my flash."
"Bob Marley for me is an icon and a symbol. He symbolizes freedom, liberty, and a free spirit, and I also really, really like reggae music, so I was very happy when I got to photograph him. I took this photo in a hotel room before his performance, and it shows the unmediated approach I received as a photographer to artists when they are in a natural environment and freer. I worked hard to get this attitude, and it helped me a lot in my career."
"We got Patti Smith in 'SoHo News' before she became very famous, so I was able to photograph her right in her natural environment in her small and messy New York apartment with her cat. This photo, like the one of Bob Marley, shows the free access I had to the artists and musicians of the time, who were also a kind of friends."
