Gered Mankowitz has an admission to make about the music of Jimi Hendrix, the man with whom his name will forever be linked.
"I never liked it, I found it a little unmelodic and a bit loud, a bit noisy," whispers the renowned photographer, as if divulging a long-hidden secret. "Liking the music has never been an imperative factor in photographing the subject. Having said that, I would say that there are certain sorts of artists who aren't very good to photograph. Heavy metal artists tend to be extremely unrewarding to photograph. I did Saxon, for instance, Judas Priest, Uriah Heap, Iron Maiden. I've done them all, and hated every session."
Mankowitz can be frank about the swings and roundabouts of rock photography now, as he takes a conscious step away from that side of the business. After capturing the mightiest talents and mightiest egos for almost half a century, the 64-year-old is enjoying a quieter life in Cornwall, on England's south-west coast. His substantial archive does necessitate occasional excursions back to London, however, and today a notable new book and exhibition are on the agenda.
We meet at the new Snap Gallery, near the bustling Piccadilly Circus, where a varied array of Mankowitz's Jimi Hendrix pictures will be displayed from September 18, the 40th anniversary of the great guitarist's death. The exhibition has a particular significance for Gered as, in a curious coincidence, it takes place in a building once owned by his father, the celebrated writer Wolf Mankowitz. Wolf also ran a successful Wedgewood furniture business, and the precocious Gered soon opened his own, rather different business in the nearby Mason's Yard. He was still a teenager when the likes of Marianne Faithful and the Rolling Stones stopped by for landmark sessions.
Mankowitz had some high-profile assistance along the way. He was introduced to photography by a famous friend of his father's, the comic actor Peter Sellers, who spent an afternoon explaining the workings of an old Hasselblad camera "with a mad Swedish accent," Mankowitz laughs
. "I was very enthusiastic and he was very encouraging."
The young photographer's big break came when he befriended the similarly precocious singer Marianne Faithful, who then posed for him. Faithful's manager, the famously incorrigible Andrew Loog Oldham, was impressed by the results and asked him to shoot the Stones. A year later, at the age of 19, he was touring America with Jagger, Richards and co, which was exciting in some respects, unexpectedly dull in others.
"I was on stage with them and as long as I didn't get in the way, as long as I didn't get in front of Mick, nobody minded," he recalls. "I had to pack up all my cameras just before the last song, because they'd rush into the limo and I had to be in the limo waiting because otherwise they'd drive off without me. They'd go straight to the airport, jump on a plane and we'd fly through the night to the next gig."
There wasn't much post-gig partying? "No, there wasn't, and everybody is so disappointed at that," he smiles. "It had its moments. But the bulk of the tour, no, it was amazingly hard work and low-key. It was a fantastic experience but it put me off touring."
Hanging out with Hendrix was also less intense than might have been expected. The now 21 year-old Mankowitz was a well-established rock photographer when the new sensation arrived at Mason's Yard in 1967, but the onstage wildman proved very different without the guitar.
"He was a lovely person. One of the things that struck me in hindsight is how lucky I was to work with him when he was still so happy. He was enjoying the attention so much, and it was fun. I think he was having a great time, he hadn't reached a point where he was exhausted or frustrated."
Mankovitz remained on good terms with Hendrix, but it soon became apparent that all was not well. What went wrong? "He wanted to evolve as an artist, and I'm not sure whether the people who were running him wanted that. I think he was overworked and I think he was frustrated and I think that frustration resulted in him slowly losing it."
The man behind the lens was rather frustrated about those Hendrix shots in the weeks and months after their two sessions. As a working photographer he measured the success of his work by how other people appreciated it, and "felt that they were a bit of a failure. One of the big problems was that I'd hoped to get the first album cover, but the record company didn't want to do a black and white cover and I'd only shot black and white, so that was a bit of a blow."
Was it a silly mistake, not shooting in colour? "It was a terrible mistake, on one level. On the other hand it's inspired me to take the work, to do stuff with the work subsequently, that maybe I would never have done if I'd always had colour."
It was some 25 years later that those pictures became suitably celebrated. An early adopter of digital technology, Mankovitz reworked his Hendrix images in the 1990s, "adding colour, adding texture," and shone new light on an often misunderstood rock legend. One rework became the cover of the hugely successful 1993 compilation album The Ultimate Experience, and Mankowitz now refers to the original shot, with Hendrix staring intently into the camera, hands on hips, as 'the classic'.
Mankowitz is happy to admit that his life has been blessed by good fortune, and that picture - now arguably his most famous - was actually something of an afterthought. The photographer was asked to do a second shoot in 1967 only because, since the first session, Hendrix's bandmates had permed their hair to match his. Mankovitz took just one shot of the great man alone, the last of the day, and it eventually became the definitive Hendrix image. Indeed, 'the classic' graces the cover of his new book, The Experience: Jimi Hendrix at Mason's Yard. "Either I was incredibly stupid or I was incredibly clever," he admits now. "Either I knew exactly what I got, or else I didn't and was very lucky."
Those rediscovered Hendrix pictures also gave a huge fillip to Mankowitz's career, which had begun to wane in the early 1990s. For such a renowned name in the photography business, he endured numerous fallow periods as music trends changed. Work dwindled when punk swept away the old rock regime in the late 1970s, but he was rediscovered by what he calls "poser punks", notably Billy Idol's band Generation X who "wanted to be the Rolling Stones of 1978." The image-conscious new romantic era then led to iconic work with the Eurythmics, Duran Duran and ABC, and his career reignited again in the mid-1990s with the retro-referencing Britpop scene, although that did include "a difficult couple of hours" with Oasis.
Another 15 years on, Mankowitz now insists that younger photographers are better suited to the modern music business, and that he has "probably, possibly made the break." But note the "probably, possibly". With that book and exhibition a fine reminder of his talents, don't be surprised if this veteran craftsman is re-embraced by the music world once again.
Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
Company%20Profile
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Disclaimer
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
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Company%20Profile
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THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
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More on Palestine-Israeli relations
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Red Sparrow
Dir: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Egerton, Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons
Three stars
MATCH INFO
Newcastle United 2 (Willems 25', Shelvey 88')
Manchester City 2 (Sterling 22', De Bruyne 82')
Business Insights
- As per the document, there are six filing options, including choosing to report on a realisation basis and transitional rules for pre-tax period gains or losses.
- SMEs with revenue below Dh3 million per annum can opt for transitional relief until 2026, treating them as having no taxable income.
- Larger entities have specific provisions for asset and liability movements, business restructuring, and handling foreign permanent establishments.
GROUPS AND FIXTURES
Group A
UAE, Italy, Japan, Spain
Group B
Egypt, Iran, Mexico, Russia
Tuesday
4.15pm: Italy v Japan
5.30pm: Spain v UAE
6.45pm: Egypt v Russia
8pm: Iran v Mexico
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
