loved selling. He was essentially a manipulator of people. And, like all great seducers, his moral code was a little dubious. I was glad he was my friend and not my enemy.
We went up to the studio and I showed him the photographs. I had made ten colour and ten black and white prints. It was a nice short story in pictures. The speedboat appears in the cove, they bathe naked, maybe they make love in the water, they lie down together on the beach, the Minister sucks the girl’s toes. The last photograph was the best, but their faces were easiest to see in the shot of them on the speedboat. The Minister leans over his lover. His face is perfectly in focus and his eyes gaze down at her naked breasts. She’s moistening her lips with her tongue. I had managed to get so close that I hadn’t needed the big telephoto lens, which makes for grainy photographs. The details were clean and sharp, as if I had been invited along on their excursion. I had selected the ten prints knowing that most of the world’s celebrity magazines or newspapers would be able to use at least one of them, depending on where each nation and its press featured on the piety scale, what was acceptable practice. As he wasa politician, even the broadsheets were bound to use a photograph in articles on the political implications. This would give them a pretext for showing naked breasts, but it would have to be one of the less erotic shots. Just for the hell of it, I had made a single print of their intercourse on the beach, but it was, as I had anticipated, far too pornographic and Oscar didn’t give it a second glance. He knew there wasn’t any money in it.
“Nice work, Peter,” was all he said as he slowly and carefully looked through the series again. I could almost hear his brain calculating which customers should have which photograph.
Oscar, Gloria and I were partners in the agency, which we had named OSPE NEWS. My name had never appeared under a single one of the exposés and other paparazzo photographs that I had taken over the years. I was unknown beyond my professional circle, but a photograph copyrighted to OSPE NEWS featured practically every day in a magazine or a newspaper somewhere in the world. And the money came rolling in. Even my famous photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy was still selling. We had branches in London and Paris and supplied many other photographs, not just of the famous. The agency represented conventional photojournalists, and one of our photographers had won awards for his coverage of the war in the former Yugoslavia, and we also had some excellent sports photographers on our books, but the really serious money came from photographs of famous people in private situations.
Oscar took the photographs and sat down at the white table in the middle of the spacious room where I drank coffee with business associates, or with the clients who sat for me when I was engaged on the other side of my trade. I took portraits of the famous, who paid me a fortune, or of faces which suddenly caught my interest on the street, in a café or a waiting room. I did those free of charge. My own name appeared on the portraits.
Oscar looked at me. “They’re worth even more than you think,” he said.
“He hasn’t been a Minister for long enough to be particularly well known outside Spain,” I said.
Oscar smiled his wolf’s smile. “Peter, old boy. It’s written all over your face. You don’t know who she is!”
I waited. Oscar read celebrity magazines in 17 languages. Not because he was an inveterate voyeur, but because it was part of his job. He studied the international jet set with the same sensitive barometer that a skilful speculator uses to study stocks and shares, balance sheets and foreign news. To be at the cutting edge, to keep one step ahead of the market, the new God of our times. To keep abreast of who was hot right now, in the limelight and thus vulnerable and marketable.
“Italy,” was all he said.
I picked up one of
We went up to the studio and I showed him the photographs. I had made ten colour and ten black and white prints. It was a nice short story in pictures. The speedboat appears in the cove, they bathe naked, maybe they make love in the water, they lie down together on the beach, the Minister sucks the girl’s toes. The last photograph was the best, but their faces were easiest to see in the shot of them on the speedboat. The Minister leans over his lover. His face is perfectly in focus and his eyes gaze down at her naked breasts. She’s moistening her lips with her tongue. I had managed to get so close that I hadn’t needed the big telephoto lens, which makes for grainy photographs. The details were clean and sharp, as if I had been invited along on their excursion. I had selected the ten prints knowing that most of the world’s celebrity magazines or newspapers would be able to use at least one of them, depending on where each nation and its press featured on the piety scale, what was acceptable practice. As he wasa politician, even the broadsheets were bound to use a photograph in articles on the political implications. This would give them a pretext for showing naked breasts, but it would have to be one of the less erotic shots. Just for the hell of it, I had made a single print of their intercourse on the beach, but it was, as I had anticipated, far too pornographic and Oscar didn’t give it a second glance. He knew there wasn’t any money in it.
“Nice work, Peter,” was all he said as he slowly and carefully looked through the series again. I could almost hear his brain calculating which customers should have which photograph.
Oscar, Gloria and I were partners in the agency, which we had named OSPE NEWS. My name had never appeared under a single one of the exposés and other paparazzo photographs that I had taken over the years. I was unknown beyond my professional circle, but a photograph copyrighted to OSPE NEWS featured practically every day in a magazine or a newspaper somewhere in the world. And the money came rolling in. Even my famous photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy was still selling. We had branches in London and Paris and supplied many other photographs, not just of the famous. The agency represented conventional photojournalists, and one of our photographers had won awards for his coverage of the war in the former Yugoslavia, and we also had some excellent sports photographers on our books, but the really serious money came from photographs of famous people in private situations.
Oscar took the photographs and sat down at the white table in the middle of the spacious room where I drank coffee with business associates, or with the clients who sat for me when I was engaged on the other side of my trade. I took portraits of the famous, who paid me a fortune, or of faces which suddenly caught my interest on the street, in a café or a waiting room. I did those free of charge. My own name appeared on the portraits.
Oscar looked at me. “They’re worth even more than you think,” he said.
“He hasn’t been a Minister for long enough to be particularly well known outside Spain,” I said.
Oscar smiled his wolf’s smile. “Peter, old boy. It’s written all over your face. You don’t know who she is!”
I waited. Oscar read celebrity magazines in 17 languages. Not because he was an inveterate voyeur, but because it was part of his job. He studied the international jet set with the same sensitive barometer that a skilful speculator uses to study stocks and shares, balance sheets and foreign news. To be at the cutting edge, to keep one step ahead of the market, the new God of our times. To keep abreast of who was hot right now, in the limelight and thus vulnerable and marketable.
“Italy,” was all he said.
I picked up one of
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