A paparazzo's farewell

big australia

This coming Friday afternoon at Sydney’s Bondi Pavilion, friends and family of the late Sydney photographer Peter Carrette will gather to pay their last respects to a well-loved member of Australia’s media community. Sixty three-year old Carrette died over the weekend at his Bondi apartment/office from a suspected heart attack, almost two years to the day that another Sydney paparazzo, Dave Morgan, died in his sleep at the age of just 53. Much will be made on Friday of UK-born Carrette’s career, which spanned five decades, kicking off in a Fleet Street darkroom when he was just 15, traversing various war zones before settling into celebrity photography in Australia - with a bang. In 1969, Carrette authored what has been described as “the most audacious, arguably the most invasive, picture in Australian photo-journalism”, international sales for which reportedly netted his then employer just US$18,000 (US$104,000 in today’s currency): an image of a comatose Marianne Faithfull inside the intensive care unit at Sydney's St Vincents Hospital. Faithfull had been in town visiting her then boyfriend Mick Jagger while he was shooting Ned Kelly, allegedly caught him in the arms of another woman and overdosed on heroin. "Everyone wanted the picture - I went and got the picture" Carrette told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2005. In order to do so, he dressed in a doctor’s coat rented from the Elizabethen Theatre Trust and sneaked into the building. It might have gotten Carrette kicked out of the Australian Journalist's Association, but it's the stuff of Gonzo legend really.

the sydney morning herald

Before any official eulogies begin, some of Carrette’s mates, at once his colleagues and competitors, have already given him one touching tribute.
 
Once word spread of Carrette's death on Monday morning, they rallied together outside his Bondi apartment at the same breakneck speed at which they normally scramble to descend on any major news story or celebrity sighting. 

Then, a cadre of some of Australia’s most successful freelance photographers including Guy Finlay, Patrick Rivière, Ross Hodgson, Sam Wordley and Malcolm Ladd, formed an impromptu guard of honour to salute their fallen brother as he left the building for the final time (below).

Using their powerful zoom lenses as makeshift swords, they turned the lenses skywards for once, to cross them over Carrette’s body as it was carried out to the funeral director's hearse on a stretcher, covered in white lilies.

“It’s our guild, it's our union, it’s our way of saying goodbye to Peter” said one. 

Vale Peter Carrette.

both images: supplied to frockwriter by big australia

Full frontal nude images of 18 year old Miranda Kerr to be released because her publicist "failed to make payment" - Tito Media

miranda kerr, 2002/screen cap jasperglavanics.com

And Nicole Kidman thought she had problems with the Australian paparazzi pack. On Saturday, frockwriter revealed the name of the photographer whose eight year-old topless images of a then 18 year-old Miranda Kerr had been shopped around by Sydney photo agency Tito Media: Jasper Glavanics. Our sources reported that the highest bidder was London’s News of the World tabloid, after Tito Media asked the Kerr camp to match the NOTW’s price to get the shots off the market and they declined. Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper (which, like NOTW, is also owned by News Ltd) paid what it described as a “nominal fee” to reproduce two of Glavanics’ shots in a story yesterday entitled “Miranda Kerr’s naked fury”. Well if Australian gossip blog, OMFG! Is to be believed, the shots are not only soon be published, they are in fact full frontal. Why should OMFG! know what it’s talking about? Because in case you had any doubt about the snarky tone of the post, a couple of quick net searches reveal that OMFG! is operated by Tito Media.

Beyond some highly unflattering observations about Lyon, nee Tuhtan, the blog post, which is dated Sunday 10th September [and which we have saved as a screen cap] reports that:

“After promising picture agencies the financial strength to purchase the images and take them off the market, in truly amateur form Tuhtan failed to make payment, perhaps in a strategised delayed manner so they missed magazine deadlines. Taken in 2002, we now all have to wait an extra week to inspect these full frontal nudes”.

Charming, really. Lyon “failed to make payment” - as if she failed to drop off a paper bag full of cash to a secret location.

The post also mentions the imminent release of Kerr’s upcoming motivational book for teenagers, Treasure Yourself. The timing of the release of the photos seems more than coincidental. 

An earlier OMFG! post, dated September 6, refers to the imminent release of nude images of a "barely legal" Kerr. 

We also have OMFG! to thank for the additional revelation that Glavanics was not just a former colleague and friend, he was Kerr’s “room mate”.

Just a reminder that part of the terms and conditions of the sale of the photos, say our sources, was that Glavanics' name was to be suppressed from any publication. The Sunday Telegraph, which paid for two of Glavanics' images, did not name him and nor does OMFG! 

    

Miranda Kerr's "naked fury", Jasper Glavanics' pounds of flesh

miranda kerr, 2002/screen cap jasperglavanics.com

Fascinating insight into the grubby world of celebrity tabloids in Sydney's Sunday Telegraph newspaper tomorrow. The first edition is now on select newsagent shelves and inside the back cover, in The Insiders double page gossip column, is a half page story on Miranda Kerr. No, not a pregnancy update, but a (censored) topless image of an 18 year-old Kerr taken in 2002, together with the headline "Kerr's naked fury". The story goes on to feign outrage and outline how "an old friend" of Kerr's has "taken advantage" of her new-found celebrity to sell what are believed to be the first topless images of Kerr to a British tabloid for a "hefty" fee. The photographer is quoted as saying he previously refrained from selling the shots to a mens magazine because "they were too nice". So a Fleet Street tabloid is a far more tasteful alternative then? But while the photographer has got no problem with flogging eight year old topless images of teenage Kerr, he asked not to be named. Couple of points here.

First up, Kerr was 18 at the time and therefore a consenting adult.

She also reportedly signed a release form for the images in 2005. 

Models do nude work all the time, some more than others. Obviously at 18 Kerr was not the celebrity that she is today and as far as frockwriter is aware, there is nothing embarrassing about the images. But there is of course no shortage of anecdotes involving the release of nude imagery of celebrities, taken years before, at a time when they were perhaps short of money, eager to get a legup in the industry or just simply plain naïve.

Kerr of course has done quite a lot of recent nude work, including appearing topless on the cover of Australian Rolling Stone and in the 2009 Pirelli calendar, shot by Terry Richardson.

In 2007, Kerr's Victoria's Secret contract catapulted her to prominence in the international modelling business. But her relationship with Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom sent her into a totally different celebrity orbit - one that has dominated entertainment coverage in recent months, thanks to their marriage in July and the subsequent announcement of Kerr's pregnancy.

She calls the shots now, controls her image and, moreover, works for fees which would be a hell of a lot more than they were when she was an unknown Australian teenager.

Just like Lara Stone is a far bigger name in 2010 than she was as recently as 2008, when Stone posed for a series of topless images for Greg Lotus, which he sold to French Playboy this year. Stone has now taken legal action against Lotus. Legal sources say that in some jurisdictions, celebrities have publicity rights over their image.

Frockwriter can reveal that the photographer who took the shots of Kerr at 18 is Australian Jasper Glavanics and that the images are part of a portfolio of images of Kerr that Glavanics uses on his website to promote his work (as seen in the above screen cap).

Frockwriter's well-placed sources report that the UK rights to the images were offered to British tabloid News of the World (which, like The Sunday Telegraph, is also published by News Ltd); that Glavanics' anonymity was part of the terms and conditions of any photo sales; and that distributor Tito Media also asked Kerr's camp to match the News of the World's (four figure) British pounds price, to get them off the market. The bullying of  deep-pocketed high-profilers into coughing up so as to disappear potentially embarrassing imagery is a not at all uncommon practice in the celebrity universe.

This evening, Glavanics told frockwriter that the images will not be appearing in News of the World because Kerr had purchased them - a fee that would have been over and above whatever Glavanics/Tito pocketed from The Sunday Telegraph, which discloses that it paid a "nominal fee" for the photographs (with Tito Media's watermark clearly visible on one of two shots published).
  
However Kerr's spokeswoman Carlii Lyon flatly denied Kerr had purchased the images.

So let's wait and see. The images will either be surfacing some time soon - or else Kerr did buy them, but doesn't want to admit it, at risk of encouraging other photographers.

UPDATE 11/10/10: ON ITS BLOG, TITO MEDIA GLOATS THAT THE IMAGES, WHICH ARE APPARENTLY FULL FRONTAL, ARE SOON TO BE PUBLISHED - AFTER LYON "FAILED TO MAKE PAYMENT". 

Added Lyon "It is a quick way to make enemies in the industry and even worse to think it was someone Miranda considered a friend and colleague".

Can't wait for the arrival of Baby Bloom.