1955.
In the 1950s, William Speer ran a photography studio at 1330 Linden Avenue in Memphis. His specialty was glamorous black and white photos with lots of play of light and shadow. For this he used a type of lighting known as “Rembrand Lighting”, since the use of light and shadow was similar to that of the master painter, Rembrand.
In his photographs Speer used to avoid, whenever he could, portray people with happy faces. Interestingly he said, “I don’t usually take pictures of smiling people. If you’re looking at a person with a smile, all you see is a smile. The smile kills everything. The real picture is in the eyes.”
In the month of July of the year 1955, Elvis arrived at his studio sent by his manager, Bob Neal, so that some photographs could be taken of him that could be used to promote him. From this session came 11 portraits that produced what can be considered the third series of publicity photos of a young and beautiful Elvis.
One of these photos became the most viewed Elvis photo of all time. The so-called “Photo of the crossed hands”.
Below you can see the 11 photographs in the order in which they were taken.
The “Photo of the crossed hands” can also be seen framed and hung on the wall of the living room of his house at 1034 Audubon Drive, in many of the snapshots that would be taken of what would be his new home.
Shortly after these Elvis photo shoots; His parents, Gladys and Vernon, also visited Speer, who took several photographs of them, it being notable that Gladys, who almost never smiled, was very smiling in these photos. Perhaps it means that seeing her intense sadness, Speer decided to affectionately capture her in a state of happiness, although it is not what he usually did in her work… A nice gesture, no doubt.
After this session, Elvis returned to Speer’s studio. The reason for this visit was to take some portraits of his girlfriend at the time, Barbara Hearn. It is during this meeting that Speer seems to have offended Elvis, which caused the breakup of the relationship between the two.
According to Speer himself, while he was concentrating on taking the photos of Barbara, Elvis was in the next room, singing. Then Speer told him: “Stop this scandal, I’m trying to photograph Barbara!”. It seems, Speer tells us, that Elvis was upset that he told him to shut up, and after that incident, they never saw each other again.
And there ended a relationship that could have been very fruitful, both personally and professionally. A real pity…