Tom Wolf 1930-2018

When I was working I got to photograph some amazing people!  Lucky me!  One of them was the author Tom Wolf, who just died the other day.  He was an absolute gentlemen, and was an easy subject, and was helpful in my request to go out on the street after I photographed him in his library at home.  When I was done with my assignment I knew I had some really special photographs.  Then disaster struck!  I received a phone call at work the next day, that the photo lab that was processing our film had made a terrible mistake.  I had given them color negative film, and they had carelessly processed it as if it was Ektachrome transparency film!  The entire shoot was completely ruined!  My worst nightmare!

So I called Tom back, and explained what happened and asked if there was any way I could come back and do the shoot all over again.  He was a prince, and said "How is this Wednesday?"  So I went back and we did it all over again.  I have to tell you one thing that happened.  I had scouted his immediate neighborhood and found an old rusty newsstand around the corner, and asked if he would walk over there with him, and he agreed.  After I did those photos, we were walking back to his home, and I was on the outside edge of the sidewalk.  I was looking at him as we walked along talking, and suddenly, there was this white wall with cracked paint behind him!  "Wait!"  I asked him if I could take a few photographs against the wall, and he said "sure" and this photograph is the result. The whole experience  was simply amazing, and he couldn't have been nicer.  Not all celebrities are anywhere this nice.