Portrait of Alfred Wertheimer
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Al Wertheimer had always wanted to tell stories.
“I wanted to become a storyteller. I wasn’t very good at writing, but I was always visually oriented. I got to Cooper Union, I took photographs of students and faculty. It eventually wound up in the school newspaper, and I liked it.”
This was the beginning of a lifelong photography practice.
Born in Germany, 1929, Wertheimer emigrated with his family to New York City when he was young, fleeing Nazi rule. There, in 1951, he received a degree in advertising design from the arts university Cooper Union. Drafted into the U.S. Army the following year, Wertheimer photographed his training experience at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Though not his original military occupation, Wertheimer was reassigned to a photography position after presenting his work to his commanding officer.
After completing his service in 1954, Wertheimer returned to New York and began working under the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo. Realizing that fashion wasn’t for him, he freelanced from a shared a studio space with a group of other young photographers, taking on assignments wherever opportunities arose.
Al Wertheimer had always wanted to tell stories.
“I wanted to become a storyteller. I wasn’t very good at writing, but I was always visually oriented. I got to Cooper Union, I took photographs of students and faculty. It eventually wound up in the school newspaper, and I liked it.”
This was the beginning of a lifelong photography practice.
Born in Germany, 1929, Wertheimer emigrated with his family to New York City when he was young, fleeing Nazi rule. There, in 1951, he received a degree in advertising design from the arts university Cooper Union. Drafted into the U.S. Army the following year, Wertheimer photographed his training experience at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Though not his original military occupation, Wertheimer was reassigned to a photography position after presenting his work to his commanding officer.
After completing his service in 1954, Wertheimer returned to New York and began working under the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo. Realizing that fashion wasn’t for him, he freelanced from a shared a studio space with a group of other young photographers, taking on assignments wherever opportunities arose.
Al Wertheimer had always wanted to tell stories.
“I wanted to become a storyteller. I wasn’t very good at writing, but I was always visually oriented. I got to Cooper Union, I took photographs of students and faculty. It eventually wound up in the school newspaper, and I liked it.”
This was the beginning of a lifelong photography practice.
Born in Germany, 1929, Wertheimer emigrated with his family to New York City when he was young, fleeing Nazi rule. There, in 1951, he received a degree in advertising design from the arts university Cooper Union. Drafted into the U.S. Army the following year, Wertheimer photographed his training experience at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Though not his original military occupation, Wertheimer was reassigned to a photography position after presenting his work to his commanding officer.
After completing his service in 1954, Wertheimer returned to New York and began working under the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo. Realizing that fashion wasn’t for him, he freelanced from a shared a studio space with a group of other young photographers, taking on assignments wherever opportunities arose.
Al Wertheimer had always wanted to tell stories.
“I wanted to become a storyteller. I wasn’t very good at writing, but I was always visually oriented. I got to Cooper Union, I took photographs of students and faculty. It eventually wound up in the school newspaper, and I liked it.”
This was the beginning of a lifelong photography practice.
Born in Germany, 1929, Wertheimer emigrated with his family to New York City when he was young, fleeing Nazi rule. There, in 1951, he received a degree in advertising design from the arts university Cooper Union. Drafted into the U.S. Army the following year, Wertheimer photographed his training experience at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Though not his original military occupation, Wertheimer was reassigned to a photography position after presenting his work to his commanding officer.
After completing his service in 1954, Wertheimer returned to New York and began working under the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo. Realizing that fashion wasn’t for him, he freelanced from a shared a studio space with a group of other young photographers, taking on assignments wherever opportunities arose.
One such opportunity appeared on March 10, 1956, when RCA Victor publicist Anne Fulchino called the studio, and Wertheimer, who was producing some work in the print room, picked up. Fulchino needed photographs of the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey television broadcast, Stage Show, on the 17th. As a fan of the Dorseys, Wertheimer said he would be happy to take on the job. However, it wasn’t the Dorsey Brothers that RCA needed photographed: rather, Fulchino clarified, it would be their musical guest.
This is how, one week later, Wertheimer was photographing the label’s new up-and-coming regional singer: Elvis Presley.
Photographing Elvis would result in some of the most iconic photos of Wertheimer’s career, and some of the most intimate images that the public would ever see of Presley.
None of the occasions that Wertheimer photographed were expected to be momentous or historic. These were mundane daily activities and routine performances of a relatively unknown, newly signed performer: Presley deciding what to eat for dinner at a hotel, napping in his seat on a train, and reading a comic book to pass the time – typical behavior for any traveler. However, Wertheimer’s instincts, for both the photographic medium and Elvis’ potential trajectory, made the resulting images feel like honest and significant depictions of Presley and his circle.
Wertheimer quickly sensed Presley’s promise, recognizing his charm and gentility alongside a rebellious spirit. He watched as Elvis quietly agreed with the television showrunners who forbade any scandalous dancing, and then as he proceeded to gyrate once onstage.
He also acutely noted the way Elvis whipped his young female audiences into a frenzy by displaying what Wertheimer recognized as a sort of vulnerability, dancing with abandon in a way that people labeled as degenerate and overtly sexual. When Elvis lost – or perhaps, discarded - his composure onstage, the fans took a cue to do just the same, sometimes even openly weeping in the audience. Wertheimer had never seen such a reaction to a singer.
Of course, in the following months Wertheimer also noticed a steady influx of requests for his photos of Elvis. It seemed that Presley’s star was steadily rising, and with it, a newfound interest in Wertheimer’s work.
After photographing Elvis for RCA once more, on the Steve Allen Show, Wertheimer decided to tag along with Presley’s touring party for a few days – not because Anne Fulchino had asked him to, but on an instinct.
“I took advantage of this opportunity to observe [Elvis there], outside the bustle of New York and closer to his home environment.”
This way, Wertheimer would be but a fly on the wall as he captured Elvis’ charming, nonchalant way of moving through the world, despite an already nonstop schedule.
“This was his reality, not a fashion shoot where you tried to capture fantasy on film.”
Outside of a few interviews and publications pertaining to his time photographing Elvis in 1956, Wertheimer rarely wrote or spoke about his practice as a photographer. Yet, the evidence of what he did tell us echoes throughout his work.
Wertheimer’s penchant for capturing candid, unposed moments shines through in Going Home, a photograph he later called his “Rembrandt shot”.
“[Going Home] wasn’t even shot bringing the camera up to my eye, because I didn’t want to break the mood. I was sitting opposite him, and I [saw] the yin and the yang. By that I mean, he’s got the light part of his face, with a dark spot in the middle, and the dark part of his face with the light in the middle. And if you look at some of the classic portraits [by] painters, no two sides of the face is identical. One is always looking inward, and one is looking outward.”
Wertheimer recognized this dynamic tension in Presley’s face in an instant, taking the photo without even raising his camera up to his eye, with no guarantee of how the image would turn out.
Wertheimer was dedicated to this down-to-earth ethos of image-making, rarely posing his subjects and using only available light (meaning he did not use strobe or flash unless absolutely necessary).
“What I found was that people tend to be more themselves, the darker the place. So, if you go into a bar, they’re outgoing, they’re themselves. If you go into a fluorescent lit room all of a sudden, everybody is more or less, y’know…” Knowing that the light would make his subjects self-conscious, Wertheimer would say he used “available darkness” to capture them as their realest selves.
This philosophy and technique is clearly present in some of his most compelling images.
In The Kiss, light pours from a single window onto a backstage stairwell at the Mosque Theater in Richmond, Virginia. Engrossed in flirtation with a girl he had met just that morning, Presley barely notices Wertheimer slip by to photograph the scene from another angle, on a mission to capture not only Elvis’ stage performances, but a complete documentation of the rising star’s day-to-day.
In 10 Cents A Print, Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker stands surrounded by fans at the Russwood Stadium where Elvis is about to play. Bright light washes over women vying for an autographed photo, but Parker, a shrewd businessman, remains shadowed as he focuses on moving his prints.
As a young photographer pushing the boundaries of the medium, Wertheimer also saw the potential of motion and blur to capture the energy and essence of a moment.
On one day of their travels, Elvis had played two shows at the Mosque Theatre. While Wertheimer spent the earlier performance capturing sharp, clear images, he decided to spend the latter experimenting with “controlled blurriness”. By slowing his camera’s shutter speed and following Elvis’ movements, Wertheimer sought to capture what was most controversial about Presley in the early days of his career: the way he moved onstage. He documented exactly that in just a few choice images that communicated Presley’s dynamic stage presence.
“Photography allows you to do what you can’t do with your naked eye. The still photograph registers something both in and out of focus at the same time while the mind only remembers the former. When I edited these images later, I realized that the center of focus, the body, ended up sharper than … his hands and feet, which were moving more quickly. With a bit of luck, I would get two or three good shots out of a couple dozen like this. That was all I needed to represent the idea … there’s a whole world of magic in photography if you just slow down the shutter speed.”
Aside from his inspired attitudes about light and movement, it was also Wertheimer’s sensitivity towards the vulnerability his subjects experienced by being in front of a camera that informed his intimate but hands-off approach.
“Up close, not only could I fill up the frame with my subject and get everything from foreground to background pretty sharp, but I was also making myself vulnerable. I have always been aware of the fact that the subject reacts to the photographer and vice versa.”
At only 26 years old himself, Wertheimer was Elvis’ peer. Under the light of a hotel bathroom, he captures the pimples on Presley’s chest as he shaves his still soft, boyish face. Here, Presley allows Wertheimer intimate access, and the two young men allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other: Presley, as he grooms himself before a performance, and Wertheimer, as he makes his presence as photographer conspicuous to his subject.
It was this ability to achieve closeness without intrusion that allowed Wertheimer to create images that would later be celebrated for their unfettered access to Presley. Despite hardly knowing him, Wertheimer’s photos manage to capture the icon’s spirit, often lost upon us now in a popular culture saturated with caricature images of ‘The King’ in flashy jumpsuits and exaggerated pompadour. In Wertheimer’s hands, the 21-year-old Presley looks barely adult, still doted upon by his mother at their backyard pool. He is not yet the rockstar about to receive an unprecedented level of fame before disappearing under a veil of privacy.
One such opportunity appeared on March 10, 1956, when RCA Victor publicist Anne Fulchino called the studio, and Wertheimer, who was producing some work in the print room, picked up. Fulchino needed photographs of the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey television broadcast, Stage Show, on the 17th. As a fan of the Dorseys, Wertheimer said he would be happy to take on the job. However, it wasn’t the Dorsey Brothers that RCA needed photographed: rather, Fulchino clarified, it would be their musical guest.
This is how, one week later, Wertheimer was photographing the label’s new up-and-coming regional singer: Elvis Presley.
Photographing Elvis would result in some of the most iconic photos of Wertheimer’s career, and some of the most intimate images that the public would ever see of Presley.
None of the occasions that Wertheimer photographed were expected to be momentous or historic. These were mundane daily activities and routine performances of a relatively unknown, newly signed performer: Presley deciding what to eat for dinner at a hotel, napping in his seat on a train, and reading a comic book to pass the time – typical behavior for any traveler. However, Wertheimer’s instincts, for both the photographic medium and Elvis’ potential trajectory, made the resulting images feel like honest and significant depictions of Presley and his circle.
Wertheimer quickly sensed Presley’s promise, recognizing his charm and gentility alongside a rebellious spirit. He watched as Elvis quietly agreed with the television showrunners who forbade any scandalous dancing, and then as he proceeded to gyrate once onstage.
He also acutely noted the way Elvis whipped his young female audiences into a frenzy by displaying what Wertheimer recognized as a sort of vulnerability, dancing with abandon in a way that people labeled as degenerate and overtly sexual. When Elvis lost – or perhaps, discarded - his composure onstage, the fans took a cue to do just the same, sometimes even openly weeping in the audience. Wertheimer had never seen such a reaction to a singer.
Of course, in the following months Wertheimer also noticed a steady influx of requests for his photos of Elvis. It seemed that Presley’s star was steadily rising, and with it, a newfound interest in Wertheimer’s work.
After photographing Elvis for RCA once more, on the Steve Allen Show, Wertheimer decided to tag along with Presley’s touring party for a few days – not because Anne Fulchino had asked him to, but on an instinct.
“I took advantage of this opportunity to observe [Elvis there], outside the bustle of New York and closer to his home environment.”
This way, Wertheimer would be but a fly on the wall as he captured Elvis’ charming, nonchalant way of moving through the world, despite an already nonstop schedule.
“This was his reality, not a fashion shoot where you tried to capture fantasy on film.”
Outside of a few interviews and publications pertaining to his time photographing Elvis in 1956, Wertheimer rarely wrote or spoke about his practice as a photographer. Yet, the evidence of what he did tell us echoes throughout his work.
Wertheimer’s penchant for capturing candid, unposed moments shines through in Going Home, a photograph he later called his “Rembrandt shot”.
“[Going Home] wasn’t even shot bringing the camera up to my eye, because I didn’t want to break the mood. I was sitting opposite him, and I [saw] the yin and the yang. By that I mean, he’s got the light part of his face, with a dark spot in the middle, and the dark part of his face with the light in the middle. And if you look at some of the classic portraits [by] painters, no two sides of the face is identical. One is always looking inward, and one is looking outward.”
Wertheimer recognized this dynamic tension in Presley’s face in an instant, taking the photo without even raising his camera up to his eye, with no guarantee of how the image would turn out.
Wertheimer was dedicated to this down-to-earth ethos of image-making, rarely posing his subjects and using only available light (meaning he did not use strobe or flash unless absolutely necessary).
“What I found was that people tend to be more themselves, the darker the place. So, if you go into a bar, they’re outgoing, they’re themselves. If you go into a fluorescent lit room all of a sudden, everybody is more or less, y’know…” Knowing that the light would make his subjects self-conscious, Wertheimer would say he used “available darkness” to capture them as their realest selves.
This philosophy and technique is clearly present in some of his most compelling images.
In The Kiss, light pours from a single window onto a backstage stairwell at the Mosque Theater in Richmond, Virginia. Engrossed in flirtation with a girl he had met just that morning, Presley barely notices Wertheimer slip by to photograph the scene from another angle, on a mission to capture not only Elvis’ stage performances, but a complete documentation of the rising star’s day-to-day.
In 10 Cents A Print, Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker stands surrounded by fans at the Russwood Stadium where Elvis is about to play. Bright light washes over women vying for an autographed photo, but Parker, a shrewd businessman, remains shadowed as he focuses on moving his prints.
As a young photographer pushing the boundaries of the medium, Wertheimer also saw the potential of motion and blur to capture the energy and essence of a moment.
On one day of their travels, Elvis had played two shows at the Mosque Theatre. While Wertheimer spent the earlier performance capturing sharp, clear images, he decided to spend the latter experimenting with “controlled blurriness”. By slowing his camera’s shutter speed and following Elvis’ movements, Wertheimer sought to capture what was most controversial about Presley in the early days of his career: the way he moved onstage. He documented exactly that in just a few choice images that communicated Presley’s dynamic stage presence.
“Photography allows you to do what you can’t do with your naked eye. The still photograph registers something both in and out of focus at the same time while the mind only remembers the former. When I edited these images later, I realized that the center of focus, the body, ended up sharper than … his hands and feet, which were moving more quickly. With a bit of luck, I would get two or three good shots out of a couple dozen like this. That was all I needed to represent the idea … there’s a whole world of magic in photography if you just slow down the shutter speed.”
Aside from his inspired attitudes about light and movement, it was also Wertheimer’s sensitivity towards the vulnerability his subjects experienced by being in front of a camera that informed his intimate but hands-off approach.
“Up close, not only could I fill up the frame with my subject and get everything from foreground to background pretty sharp, but I was also making myself vulnerable. I have always been aware of the fact that the subject reacts to the photographer and vice versa.”
At only 26 years old himself, Wertheimer was Elvis’ peer. Under the light of a hotel bathroom, he captures the pimples on Presley’s chest as he shaves his still soft, boyish face. Here, Presley allows Wertheimer intimate access, and the two young men allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other: Presley, as he grooms himself before a performance, and Wertheimer, as he makes his presence as photographer conspicuous to his subject.
It was this ability to achieve closeness without intrusion that allowed Wertheimer to create images that would later be celebrated for their unfettered access to Presley. Despite hardly knowing him, Wertheimer’s photos manage to capture the icon’s spirit, often lost upon us now in a popular culture saturated with caricature images of ‘The King’ in flashy jumpsuits and exaggerated pompadour. In Wertheimer’s hands, the 21-year-old Presley looks barely adult, still doted upon by his mother at their backyard pool. He is not yet the rockstar about to receive an unprecedented level of fame before disappearing under a veil of privacy.
One such opportunity appeared on March 10, 1956, when RCA Victor publicist Anne Fulchino called the studio, and Wertheimer, who was producing some work in the print room, picked up. Fulchino needed photographs of the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey television broadcast, Stage Show, on the 17th. As a fan of the Dorseys, Wertheimer said he would be happy to take on the job. However, it wasn’t the Dorsey Brothers that RCA needed photographed: rather, Fulchino clarified, it would be their musical guest.
This is how, one week later, Wertheimer was photographing the label’s new up-and-coming regional singer: Elvis Presley.
Photographing Elvis would result in some of the most iconic photos of Wertheimer’s career, and some of the most intimate images that the public would ever see of Presley.
None of the occasions that Wertheimer photographed were expected to be momentous or historic. These were mundane daily activities and routine performances of a relatively unknown, newly signed performer: Presley deciding what to eat for dinner at a hotel, napping in his seat on a train, and reading a comic book to pass the time – typical behavior for any traveler. However, Wertheimer’s instincts, for both the photographic medium and Elvis’ potential trajectory, made the resulting images feel like honest and significant depictions of Presley and his circle.
Wertheimer quickly sensed Presley’s promise, recognizing his charm and gentility alongside a rebellious spirit. He watched as Elvis quietly agreed with the television showrunners who forbade any scandalous dancing, and then as he proceeded to gyrate once onstage.
He also acutely noted the way Elvis whipped his young female audiences into a frenzy by displaying what Wertheimer recognized as a sort of vulnerability, dancing with abandon in a way that people labeled as degenerate and overtly sexual. When Elvis lost – or perhaps, discarded - his composure onstage, the fans took a cue to do just the same, sometimes even openly weeping in the audience. Wertheimer had never seen such a reaction to a singer.
Of course, in the following months Wertheimer also noticed a steady influx of requests for his photos of Elvis. It seemed that Presley’s star was steadily rising, and with it, a newfound interest in Wertheimer’s work.
After photographing Elvis for RCA once more, on the Steve Allen Show, Wertheimer decided to tag along with Presley’s touring party for a few days – not because Anne Fulchino had asked him to, but on an instinct.
“I took advantage of this opportunity to observe [Elvis there], outside the bustle of New York and closer to his home environment.”
This way, Wertheimer would be but a fly on the wall as he captured Elvis’ charming, nonchalant way of moving through the world, despite an already nonstop schedule.
“This was his reality, not a fashion shoot where you tried to capture fantasy on film.”
Outside of a few interviews and publications pertaining to his time photographing Elvis in 1956, Wertheimer rarely wrote or spoke about his practice as a photographer. Yet, the evidence of what he did tell us echoes throughout his work.
Wertheimer’s penchant for capturing candid, unposed moments shines through in Going Home, a photograph he later called his “Rembrandt shot”.
“[Going Home] wasn’t even shot bringing the camera up to my eye, because I didn’t want to break the mood. I was sitting opposite him, and I [saw] the yin and the yang. By that I mean, he’s got the light part of his face, with a dark spot in the middle, and the dark part of his face with the light in the middle. And if you look at some of the classic portraits [by] painters, no two sides of the face is identical. One is always looking inward, and one is looking outward.”
Wertheimer recognized this dynamic tension in Presley’s face in an instant, taking the photo without even raising his camera up to his eye, with no guarantee of how the image would turn out.
Wertheimer was dedicated to this down-to-earth ethos of image-making, rarely posing his subjects and using only available light (meaning he did not use strobe or flash unless absolutely necessary).
“What I found was that people tend to be more themselves, the darker the place. So, if you go into a bar, they’re outgoing, they’re themselves. If you go into a fluorescent lit room all of a sudden, everybody is more or less, y’know…” Knowing that the light would make his subjects self-conscious, Wertheimer would say he used “available darkness” to capture them as their realest selves.
This philosophy and technique is clearly present in some of his most compelling images.
In The Kiss, light pours from a single window onto a backstage stairwell at the Mosque Theater in Richmond, Virginia. Engrossed in flirtation with a girl he had met just that morning, Presley barely notices Wertheimer slip by to photograph the scene from another angle, on a mission to capture not only Elvis’ stage performances, but a complete documentation of the rising star’s day-to-day.
In 10 Cents A Print, Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker stands surrounded by fans at the Russwood Stadium where Elvis is about to play. Bright light washes over women vying for an autographed photo, but Parker, a shrewd businessman, remains shadowed as he focuses on moving his prints.
As a young photographer pushing the boundaries of the medium, Wertheimer also saw the potential of motion and blur to capture the energy and essence of a moment.
On one day of their travels, Elvis had played two shows at the Mosque Theatre. While Wertheimer spent the earlier performance capturing sharp, clear images, he decided to spend the latter experimenting with “controlled blurriness”. By slowing his camera’s shutter speed and following Elvis’ movements, Wertheimer sought to capture what was most controversial about Presley in the early days of his career: the way he moved onstage. He documented exactly that in just a few choice images that communicated Presley’s dynamic stage presence.
“Photography allows you to do what you can’t do with your naked eye. The still photograph registers something both in and out of focus at the same time while the mind only remembers the former. When I edited these images later, I realized that the center of focus, the body, ended up sharper than … his hands and feet, which were moving more quickly. With a bit of luck, I would get two or three good shots out of a couple dozen like this. That was all I needed to represent the idea … there’s a whole world of magic in photography if you just slow down the shutter speed.”
Aside from his inspired attitudes about light and movement, it was also Wertheimer’s sensitivity towards the vulnerability his subjects experienced by being in front of a camera that informed his intimate but hands-off approach.
“Up close, not only could I fill up the frame with my subject and get everything from foreground to background pretty sharp, but I was also making myself vulnerable. I have always been aware of the fact that the subject reacts to the photographer and vice versa.”
At only 26 years old himself, Wertheimer was Elvis’ peer. Under the light of a hotel bathroom, he captures the pimples on Presley’s chest as he shaves his still soft, boyish face. Here, Presley allows Wertheimer intimate access, and the two young men allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other: Presley, as he grooms himself before a performance, and Wertheimer, as he makes his presence as photographer conspicuous to his subject.
It was this ability to achieve closeness without intrusion that allowed Wertheimer to create images that would later be celebrated for their unfettered access to Presley. Despite hardly knowing him, Wertheimer’s photos manage to capture the icon’s spirit, often lost upon us now in a popular culture saturated with caricature images of ‘The King’ in flashy jumpsuits and exaggerated pompadour. In Wertheimer’s hands, the 21-year-old Presley looks barely adult, still doted upon by his mother at their backyard pool. He is not yet the rockstar about to receive an unprecedented level of fame before disappearing under a veil of privacy.
One such opportunity appeared on March 10, 1956, when RCA Victor publicist Anne Fulchino called the studio, and Wertheimer, who was producing some work in the print room, picked up. Fulchino needed photographs of the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey television broadcast, Stage Show, on the 17th. As a fan of the Dorseys, Wertheimer said he would be happy to take on the job. However, it wasn’t the Dorsey Brothers that RCA needed photographed: rather, Fulchino clarified, it would be their musical guest.
This is how, one week later, Wertheimer was photographing the label’s new up-and-coming regional singer: Elvis Presley.
Photographing Elvis would result in some of the most iconic photos of Wertheimer’s career, and some of the most intimate images that the public would ever see of Presley.
None of the occasions that Wertheimer photographed were expected to be momentous or historic. These were mundane daily activities and routine performances of a relatively unknown, newly signed performer: Presley deciding what to eat for dinner at a hotel, napping in his seat on a train, and reading a comic book to pass the time – typical behavior for any traveler. However, Wertheimer’s instincts, for both the photographic medium and Elvis’ potential trajectory, made the resulting images feel like honest and significant depictions of Presley and his circle.
Wertheimer quickly sensed Presley’s promise, recognizing his charm and gentility alongside a rebellious spirit. He watched as Elvis quietly agreed with the television showrunners who forbade any scandalous dancing, and then as he proceeded to gyrate once onstage.
He also acutely noted the way Elvis whipped his young female audiences into a frenzy by displaying what Wertheimer recognized as a sort of vulnerability, dancing with abandon in a way that people labeled as degenerate and overtly sexual. When Elvis lost – or perhaps, discarded - his composure onstage, the fans took a cue to do just the same, sometimes even openly weeping in the audience. Wertheimer had never seen such a reaction to a singer.
Of course, in the following months Wertheimer also noticed a steady influx of requests for his photos of Elvis. It seemed that Presley’s star was steadily rising, and with it, a newfound interest in Wertheimer’s work.
After photographing Elvis for RCA once more, on the Steve Allen Show, Wertheimer decided to tag along with Presley’s touring party for a few days – not because Anne Fulchino had asked him to, but on an instinct.
“I took advantage of this opportunity to observe [Elvis there], outside the bustle of New York and closer to his home environment.”
This way, Wertheimer would be but a fly on the wall as he captured Elvis’ charming, nonchalant way of moving through the world, despite an already nonstop schedule.
“This was his reality, not a fashion shoot where you tried to capture fantasy on film.”
Outside of a few interviews and publications pertaining to his time photographing Elvis in 1956, Wertheimer rarely wrote or spoke about his practice as a photographer. Yet, the evidence of what he did tell us echoes throughout his work.
Wertheimer’s penchant for capturing candid, unposed moments shines through in Going Home, a photograph he later called his “Rembrandt shot”.
“[Going Home] wasn’t even shot bringing the camera up to my eye, because I didn’t want to break the mood. I was sitting opposite him, and I [saw] the yin and the yang. By that I mean, he’s got the light part of his face, with a dark spot in the middle, and the dark part of his face with the light in the middle. And if you look at some of the classic portraits [by] painters, no two sides of the face is identical. One is always looking inward, and one is looking outward.”
Wertheimer recognized this dynamic tension in Presley’s face in an instant, taking the photo without even raising his camera up to his eye, with no guarantee of how the image would turn out.
Wertheimer was dedicated to this down-to-earth ethos of image-making, rarely posing his subjects and using only available light (meaning he did not use strobe or flash unless absolutely necessary).
“What I found was that people tend to be more themselves, the darker the place. So, if you go into a bar, they’re outgoing, they’re themselves. If you go into a fluorescent lit room all of a sudden, everybody is more or less, y’know…” Knowing that the light would make his subjects self-conscious, Wertheimer would say he used “available darkness” to capture them as their realest selves.
This philosophy and technique is clearly present in some of his most compelling images.
In The Kiss, light pours from a single window onto a backstage stairwell at the Mosque Theater in Richmond, Virginia. Engrossed in flirtation with a girl he had met just that morning, Presley barely notices Wertheimer slip by to photograph the scene from another angle, on a mission to capture not only Elvis’ stage performances, but a complete documentation of the rising star’s day-to-day.
In 10 Cents A Print, Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker stands surrounded by fans at the Russwood Stadium where Elvis is about to play. Bright light washes over women vying for an autographed photo, but Parker, a shrewd businessman, remains shadowed as he focuses on moving his prints.
As a young photographer pushing the boundaries of the medium, Wertheimer also saw the potential of motion and blur to capture the energy and essence of a moment.
On one day of their travels, Elvis had played two shows at the Mosque Theatre. While Wertheimer spent the earlier performance capturing sharp, clear images, he decided to spend the latter experimenting with “controlled blurriness”. By slowing his camera’s shutter speed and following Elvis’ movements, Wertheimer sought to capture what was most controversial about Presley in the early days of his career: the way he moved onstage. He documented exactly that in just a few choice images that communicated Presley’s dynamic stage presence.
“Photography allows you to do what you can’t do with your naked eye. The still photograph registers something both in and out of focus at the same time while the mind only remembers the former. When I edited these images later, I realized that the center of focus, the body, ended up sharper than … his hands and feet, which were moving more quickly. With a bit of luck, I would get two or three good shots out of a couple dozen like this. That was all I needed to represent the idea … there’s a whole world of magic in photography if you just slow down the shutter speed.”
Aside from his inspired attitudes about light and movement, it was also Wertheimer’s sensitivity towards the vulnerability his subjects experienced by being in front of a camera that informed his intimate but hands-off approach.
“Up close, not only could I fill up the frame with my subject and get everything from foreground to background pretty sharp, but I was also making myself vulnerable. I have always been aware of the fact that the subject reacts to the photographer and vice versa.”
At only 26 years old himself, Wertheimer was Elvis’ peer. Under the light of a hotel bathroom, he captures the pimples on Presley’s chest as he shaves his still soft, boyish face. Here, Presley allows Wertheimer intimate access, and the two young men allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other: Presley, as he grooms himself before a performance, and Wertheimer, as he makes his presence as photographer conspicuous to his subject.
It was this ability to achieve closeness without intrusion that allowed Wertheimer to create images that would later be celebrated for their unfettered access to Presley. Despite hardly knowing him, Wertheimer’s photos manage to capture the icon’s spirit, often lost upon us now in a popular culture saturated with caricature images of ‘The King’ in flashy jumpsuits and exaggerated pompadour. In Wertheimer’s hands, the 21-year-old Presley looks barely adult, still doted upon by his mother at their backyard pool. He is not yet the rockstar about to receive an unprecedented level of fame before disappearing under a veil of privacy.
Wertheimer continued exercising these methods as he photographed for RCA throughout much of his career, creating both standard promotional photographs as well as impactful, candid images. He especially appreciated working with musicians as they practiced their craft.
“They’re involved in their art, so you can do your art without telling them what to do. Most people are impatient, they want to take the snap, they want to take the picture, so they say, ‘Could you stand still?’ No, that’s not what you want to do – [you need to ask instead,] ‘Could you get involved with yourself somehow? Comb your hair, talk to your friend, think about what’s going on tonight.’ So that the inner part of what their mind is thinking about is coming out on the outer surface of their bodies.”
Wertheimer continued exercising these methods as he photographed for RCA throughout much of his career, creating both standard promotional photographs as well as impactful, candid images. He especially appreciated working with musicians as they practiced their craft.
“They’re involved in their art, so you can do your art without telling them what to do. Most people are impatient, they want to take the snap, they want to take the picture, so they say, ‘Could you stand still?’ No, that’s not what you want to do – [you need to ask instead,] ‘Could you get involved with yourself somehow? Comb your hair, talk to your friend, think about what’s going on tonight.’ So that the inner part of what their mind is thinking about is coming out on the outer surface of their bodies.”
Wertheimer continued exercising these methods as he photographed for RCA throughout much of his career, creating both standard promotional photographs as well as impactful, candid images. He especially appreciated working with musicians as they practiced their craft.
“They’re involved in their art, so you can do your art without telling them what to do. Most people are impatient, they want to take the snap, they want to take the picture, so they say, ‘Could you stand still?’ No, that’s not what you want to do – [you need to ask instead,] ‘Could you get involved with yourself somehow? Comb your hair, talk to your friend, think about what’s going on tonight.’ So that the inner part of what their mind is thinking about is coming out on the outer surface of their bodies.”
Wertheimer continued exercising these methods as he photographed for RCA throughout much of his career, creating both standard promotional photographs as well as impactful, candid images. He especially appreciated working with musicians as they practiced their craft.
“They’re involved in their art, so you can do your art without telling them what to do. Most people are impatient, they want to take the snap, they want to take the picture, so they say, ‘Could you stand still?’ No, that’s not what you want to do – [you need to ask instead,] ‘Could you get involved with yourself somehow? Comb your hair, talk to your friend, think about what’s going on tonight.’ So that the inner part of what their mind is thinking about is coming out on the outer surface of their bodies.”
Wertheimer’s images of Nina Simone from the early 1960’s illustrate his skill for using “available darkness” and motion to capture his subjects’ inner lives.
As Simone stands in a hotel bathroom, a single light illuminates her face reflected in the mirror but leaves her back, and the rest of the room, awash in shadow. Then, as she carries her young daughter Lisa, streaks of light and motion blur transform spontaneous nighttime portraits into images that paint Simone as a solitary, perhaps shaky pillar of maternal care in a chaotic world.
By deftly navigating the light conditions available, Wertheimer crafts a story of a woman steeped in some unknowable loneliness: a far cry from the effect to which darkness and blur helped him to portray Elvis.
Wertheimer’s most compelling photos are connected by this common thread: the goal of photographing people, celebrities and common folk alike, as their spontaneous and authentic selves. In his best work, one can glimpse genuine emotion running across the subject’s face, fleeting moments made possible by a thin veil of shadow. Darkness not only elicited enough ease in his subjects to display such emotion, but also gave Wertheimer the conditions to emphasize that emotion through his technical choices.
Wertheimer’s images of Nina Simone from the early 1960’s illustrate his skill for using “available darkness” and motion to capture his subjects’ inner lives.
As Simone stands in a hotel bathroom, a single light illuminates her face reflected in the mirror but leaves her back, and the rest of the room, awash in shadow. Then, as she carries her young daughter Lisa, streaks of light and motion blur transform spontaneous nighttime portraits into images that paint Simone as a solitary, perhaps shaky pillar of maternal care in a chaotic world.
By deftly navigating the light conditions available, Wertheimer crafts a story of a woman steeped in some unknowable loneliness: a far cry from the effect to which darkness and blur helped him to portray Elvis.
Wertheimer’s most compelling photos are connected by this common thread: the goal of photographing people, celebrities and common folk alike, as their spontaneous and authentic selves. In his best work, one can glimpse genuine emotion running across the subject’s face, fleeting moments made possible by a thin veil of shadow. Darkness not only elicited enough ease in his subjects to display such emotion, but also gave Wertheimer the conditions to emphasize that emotion through his technical choices.
Wertheimer’s images of Nina Simone from the early 1960’s illustrate his skill for using “available darkness” and motion to capture his subjects’ inner lives.
As Simone stands in a hotel bathroom, a single light illuminates her face reflected in the mirror but leaves her back, and the rest of the room, awash in shadow. Then, as she carries her young daughter Lisa, streaks of light and motion blur transform spontaneous nighttime portraits into images that paint Simone as a solitary, perhaps shaky pillar of maternal care in a chaotic world.
By deftly navigating the light conditions available, Wertheimer crafts a story of a woman steeped in some unknowable loneliness: a far cry from the effect to which darkness and blur helped him to portray Elvis.
Wertheimer’s most compelling photos are connected by this common thread: the goal of photographing people, celebrities and common folk alike, as their spontaneous and authentic selves. In his best work, one can glimpse genuine emotion running across the subject’s face, fleeting moments made possible by a thin veil of shadow. Darkness not only elicited enough ease in his subjects to display such emotion, but also gave Wertheimer the conditions to emphasize that emotion through his technical choices.
Wertheimer’s images of Nina Simone from the early 1960’s illustrate his skill for using “available darkness” and motion to capture his subjects’ inner lives.
As Simone stands in a hotel bathroom, a single light illuminates her face reflected in the mirror but leaves her back, and the rest of the room, awash in shadow. Then, as she carries her young daughter Lisa, streaks of light and motion blur transform spontaneous nighttime portraits into images that paint Simone as a solitary, perhaps shaky pillar of maternal care in a chaotic world.
By deftly navigating the light conditions available, Wertheimer crafts a story of a woman steeped in some unknowable loneliness: a far cry from the effect to which darkness and blur helped him to portray Elvis.
Wertheimer’s most compelling photos are connected by this common thread: the goal of photographing people, celebrities and common folk alike, as their spontaneous and authentic selves. In his best work, one can glimpse genuine emotion running across the subject’s face, fleeting moments made possible by a thin veil of shadow. Darkness not only elicited enough ease in his subjects to display such emotion, but also gave Wertheimer the conditions to emphasize that emotion through his technical choices.
In his photojournalistic and editorial assignments, Wertheimer’s sensitivity to light, motion, and emotion also brings to life scenes from his home city of New York:
In his photojournalistic and editorial assignments, Wertheimer’s sensitivity to light, motion, and emotion also brings to life scenes from his home city of New York:
In his photojournalistic and editorial assignments, Wertheimer’s sensitivity to light, motion, and emotion also brings to life scenes from his home city of New York:
In his photojournalistic and editorial assignments, Wertheimer’s sensitivity to light, motion, and emotion also brings to life scenes from his home city of New York:
“I learned that when somebody is doing something that is more important in his or her life than having their photograph taken, you’re going to get good pictures.”
“I learned that when somebody is doing something that is more important in his or her life than having their photograph taken, you’re going to get good pictures.”
“I learned that when somebody is doing something that is more important in his or her life than having their photograph taken, you’re going to get good pictures.”
“I learned that when somebody is doing something that is more important in his or her life than having their photograph taken, you’re going to get good pictures.”
The intimacy and authenticity that make Wertheimer’s photos of Elvis so captivating are due in large part to the fact that Presley was still relatively less known in the summer in 1956, and still able to casually welcome strangers into his world.
Still, it was only Wertheimer, with his watchful eye and intuition, hands-off approach and sympathetic style, who was able to capture Elvis as he did.
And that sensibility applied not only to rising stars, but to the most common working folk in the most quotidian of settings. That sensibility, his regard for his subjects, is what makes Wertheimer’s body of work an unsung treasure of the 20th century.
The intimacy and authenticity that make Wertheimer’s photos of Elvis so captivating are due in large part to the fact that Presley was still relatively less known in the summer in 1956, and still able to casually welcome strangers into his world.
Still, it was only Wertheimer, with his watchful eye and intuition, hands-off approach and sympathetic style, who was able to capture Elvis as he did.
And that sensibility applied not only to rising stars, but to the most common working folk in the most quotidian of settings. That sensibility, his regard for his subjects, is what makes Wertheimer’s body of work an unsung treasure of the 20th century.
The intimacy and authenticity that make Wertheimer’s photos of Elvis so captivating are due in large part to the fact that Presley was still relatively less known in the summer in 1956, and still able to casually welcome strangers into his world.
Still, it was only Wertheimer, with his watchful eye and intuition, hands-off approach and sympathetic style, who was able to capture Elvis as he did.
And that sensibility applied not only to rising stars, but to the most common working folk in the most quotidian of settings. That sensibility, his regard for his subjects, is what makes Wertheimer’s body of work an unsung treasure of the 20th century.
The intimacy and authenticity that make Wertheimer’s photos of Elvis so captivating are due in large part to the fact that Presley was still relatively less known in the summer in 1956, and still able to casually welcome strangers into his world.
Still, it was only Wertheimer, with his watchful eye and intuition, hands-off approach and sympathetic style, who was able to capture Elvis as he did.
And that sensibility applied not only to rising stars, but to the most common working folk in the most quotidian of settings. That sensibility, his regard for his subjects, is what makes Wertheimer’s body of work an unsung treasure of the 20th century.
