It was around noon on Monday, February 26, 2007, when my flip phone rang. It was Mel Evans, the New Jersey Supervisor o Photography for the Associated Press. He asked me if I'd like to go across the river for an assignment. Of course I said sure. Back then Marc Steiner and I had founded Agency New Jersey, a photo agency covering politics, sports, and breaking news across the Garden State.
My love for photojournalism began back at The Red Bank Register in 1984 when I was a sophomore in high school. I walked in to the paper and met the Chief Photographer, Carl D. Forino, who would go on to be a great friend and mentor. Let's see, that's me, 42 years ago. But anyway.
Now traveling to New York to shoot is a pain in the ass. Traffic, gas, tolls, and worst of all parking can add up quick and cost a fortune. On assignments you get your expenses covered, but if your creating your own assignments, those get negotiated into the sales of the images, which for us, was mainly the New York Times, The Star Ledger, and the rest of the New York regional papers and magazines.
Mel's call came around 12, and when I asked when the assignment was he said, "Now". He went on to give me the particulars. I would be going to the Iridium Jazz Club at 51st and Broadway in Manhattan. I cringed when he told me where because it would be at the height of rush hour in Midtown. But the things with assignments, you never say no, because you'll go to the end of the list of photographers the editors would call when you decline.
He then went further. "You'll be going there to photograph Les Paul, you'll have an hour with him before his show". "Bring your lighting equipment and get some portraits and him during the show". There was no tight deadline as these images were for the tank, honestly, they wanted to get recent images of Les as he was getting older, and one day wouldn't be playing anymore.
I was a nervous wreck driving there, arriving, and setting up. But he was great and was gracious and accommodating. This was in the days before iPhones and when quality digital cameras were readily available and affordable. These days there's 1,000 cameras out and a multitude of images taken of just about everything so finding recent photos are easily found with a quick Google search. Back in the day, photojournalism was great, everything was a paid assignment, not on spec like today.
I didn't think much about the images after I submitted them, but was more interested in getting my rate and expenses covered in my check coming from the AP. In 2009, two years later, Paul passed away and the images from that night we were used everywhere.
That's the funny thing about being a photographer and images, very rarely do you get royalties. I had been paid a few hundred dollars for my work that evening and that was it. So all those news outlets that had paid subscriptions with the Associated Press were able to use them at their will, and still do today.
I remember The New York Times ran it pretty big in their newspaper, and even in their digital "paper", which was new back then, and helped kill the daily newspaper industry. They had to run a correction a few days later as they published the wrong location and date, but at least they got the credit line correct.
The reason I write this is because recently I saw some of those images out there again. In August 2026, Paul's Mahwah home and studio were demolished and news outlets needed some images to complement their stories.
Those images, along with the tens of thousands, that I took during my time as a photographer are buried somewhere in the old bulky external hard drives we used to store images. I don't know if they deteriorate over time but they are there. Maybe someday I'll dig them out and spend some time looking through them. I know there's some good ones.
After I saw the story about Paul I went to Google to see what other images were out there in the Cloud or online. While I was just glad to get some decent images, and get paid, from the assignment, Google really jazzed, no pun intended, the images up, and their importance as a,
"... definitive historical visual of the artist...". Who wouldda thought? I'm just glad I said yes to Mel almost twenty years ago. Those were good times.