For Mum and Dad
(Sorry about the rude parts and the swearing!)
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue ‘Something had gone terribly wrong’ – see inside for full story
THE BIG BREAK INSIDE THE DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD OF THE FREELANCE SNAPPER
FAR HORIZONS LOCAL SNAPPER SCOOPS PRESS AWARDS
Mel LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT FOR CASINO BOY
CALLED TO WAR Confronting images from a brutal conflict
A New Kind of Agency BRIDE HITS DECK ON WHITSUNDAY ISLAND HONEYMOON CRUISE
Off to Battle Shocking scenes from a senseless war; ‘why can’t human beings just get along?’
THE FINAL PAGE DAZZA’S CASHED UP, BUT CAN HE KEEP MEL?
BIG DEVELOPMENTS NEW PAP AGENCY BLITZES COMPETITION
Rollercoaster Ride Paparazzi entrepreneur hits self-destruct buttton
Lifting the Lid INSIDE: HOT PICS OF THE BIGGEST CELEBS
Adventures with the Beautiful People STARS’ TERRIBLE TANTRUMS?
ST TROPEZ SCOOP! First pics of millionaire’s playground
Glamour Girls ‘It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it’
SUPERSTARS AND MADMEN HOT PICS OF A-LIST COUPLES
The People’s Princess EXCLUSIVE: Diana works miracles
Diana’s Crash – the Truth
Catwalks and Dance Floors PAPARAZZI KING BANKROLLS GIRL GROUP
TRADING PLACES PAPARAZZI KING A SHOE-IN FOR THE SMALL SCREEN
The Knack PLUS! Snapper tips on nailing the best shots
LIVING THE DREAM LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD
Acknowledgements
Copyright
IT WAS JUST PAST MIDNIGHT on Sunday 31 August and I was at home watching television when the phone rang. It was my agent in Paris and he had shocking news. He told me that Princess Diana had been in a major car accident, he had men at the scene and the pictures would be with me soon.
My agent’s photographers had lost the trail of Diana’s car when its driver, Henri Paul, jumped a red light immediately after leaving the Ritz hotel in Paris. While most of the other paparazzi kept trying to find the car, our men decided to head for home and happened upon the wreck of the car as it lay in the Alma tunnel. They ran down and began helping administer first aid to Diana as they waited for emergency services to arrive. Once it became clear they could do nothing more to assist, Fabrice clicked into work mode and took some pictures of the biggest new story he would ever be a part of.
I rang a few newspaper editors and offered them the tip of the year for a healthy fee. They reacted to the news with incredulity, but started chasing it up while I raced into the office. The pictures from the accident started dropping onto our computer system and I realised it was serious. I whispered a prayer. I didn’t know what to do. I knew this was big, but the little boy from Geelong didn’t know how big.
Initial reports said that Diana was concussed and had a broken arm and the images I was looking at seemed to confirm that. I spoke to the editor of the News of the World, who offered me a quarter of a million pounds for one-time use of the images. We did the deal, and a low-res shot was sent to News International – the only one that left my office.
And then I got a call telling me that Diana was dead. I immediately withdrew all of the images from the market. It was a big call, but once the tragic news came, my mind was set. I just had to answer a simple ethical question. I felt a wave of shock. Truly this, too, was like losing a member of the family. I was gripped by a deep feeling of sickness and felt like my soul had been pierced. Something had gone terribly wrong. Fairytale princesses weren’t supposed to die.
THE NEWS OF THE WORLD and the cut and thrust of London’s media were in every aspect a long way removed from my upbringing in provincial Victoria. But that upbringing made me the way I am and sharpened my natural instincts to make bold moves and to achieve.
I had an idyllic childhood in Geelong, a middle-class, country town an hour out of Melbourne. Everyone knows everyone else’s business and if they don’t, they make it up. It’s still a funny mix of being a very friendly, safe place to bring up a family and the Wild West. The P-plate burnouts still happen down Moorabool Street on a Saturday night. The radio station is still playing the same music it did twenty years ago – ‘April Sun in Cuba’ by Dragon. But that’s what Geelong people like and that’s what I love about Geelong. As they say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Everyone in town seems to go off to work at Ford, Alcoa or Shell or becomes a plumber or electrician. I broke the mould. Not only did I break the mould at school but also at home. My family were quite strict Baptists – it’s odd because there’s nothing strict about me.
School was the start of my entrepreneurial activities. At around the age of nine, I wrote to the great Australian cricketer Dennis Lillee and asked him for five autographs, telling him to write in one of them: ‘Good luck in your cricket, Darryn’. I intended to sell the others for 20 cents a time. Lillee was my idol. I was successful in my request, and was delighted when he even spelt my name right. I copied his signature and to this day mine is very similar to his.
Competition and ambition were a big part of my character. In my bedroom was a picture of a Lamborghini Countach. I dreamed of that car, just because it was different – the doors opened upwards. My friends remember me telling them that I would have that car one day, and in fact the Lamborghini that I ended up buying from Rod Stewart was the same colour as the one on my bedroom wall. My main mates from school were Mario Gregorio (Mars), Shayne Van Dreumel (Vanny or Drumes), and David Lewis (Lewy). During our high school years we stuck together like glue.
Undoubtedly the biggest influence on me outside the family unit was Mal Donnelly, my art and photography teacher at East Tech Secondary. I come from a family of architects, builders and painters, but when I discovered photography I was gripped by a massive passion for it. The school had been given the most incredible facilities by the state government – when I got my first job at the Geelong Advertiser the paper didn’t have the facilities that the school did!
I owe Mal my career because he encouraged my love of photography. He was a huge influence – compassionate, caring and with an intuitive understanding of how a kid’s brain operates. He saw I had the right attitude, and the fortitude to be a good photographer, and he saw the amount of work I was willing to do. Mal also taught adults in the evening on a paying course, which ensured that he had good equipment for the kids to use. He was also able to duplicate his adult lesson plans for the brightest kids in the day class.
I wouldn’t call my discovery of photography luck; I really think it was fate. I was never going to do anything else – didn’t even have to