The photography world and beyond has lost one of the truly great eyes. Tim Page, a heroic Vietnam war photographer and counter-culture icon who miraculously defied death several times, has passed away at his home in Bellingen, NSW at 78-years-old.
While the gutsy British photographer most famously captured the raw realities of the Vietnam War, Tim’s free-spirited personality is equally venerated and celebrated.
A revealing insight into this personality is told through Michael Herr’s 1977 classic quasi-journalistic account of the Vietnam war, Dispatches, where Tim plays a major character. He’s portrayed as a hedonistic tripped-out oddball who revelled in the madness and horrors of war.
He’s described Tim as one of the most extravagant ‘wigged-out crazies’, who ‘liked to augment his field gear with freak paraphernalia, scarves and beads’. This character inspired Dennis Hopper’s photojournalist character in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, one of the finest 20th century war films films.
And don’t just take it from Dispatch and Apocalypse Now. Even Gonzo journalism pioneer and counter-culture tripper, Hunter S. Thompson, who briefly worked alongside Tim for Rolling Stone magazine, couldn’t keep up with the photographer.
In his bio, Nam, Tim attempts to explain why he and others had an affinity for the Vietnam War:
‘So many of the lethal gadgets had a pure and simple sexiness, the romance of power over life, ego-saving, black and white decisive life and death, the ultimate blast, the final wave on the best-equipped board in the surf. I am not sure if most, even in the depth of the soul-searching hawk and dove debates, really weren’t out there mainly for the hell of it, for the kicks, the fun, the brush with all that was most evil, most dear, most profane… the camaraderie, the sheer adventure of it all, were the biggest isms that could ever frag our hearts and minds.
He was a man capable of producing a fine quote, such as this beauty: ‘the camera became a filter to the madness and horror, a means of portraying it’… ‘the only thing it couldn’t stop was the stench of death’.
Tim, born in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in Britain on May 25, 1944, was the son of a British sailor killed in World War II. He was adopted and never knew his birth mother, and left England at 17 to explore the world, telling his parents ‘[I] am leaving home for Europe or perhaps Navy and hence the world. Do not know how long I shall go for’.
He crossed the continent – travelling through Europe, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, finally landing in Indochina as the gears of war lurched into motion. He had no formal education in photography, but landed plenty of assignments thanks to a natural talent combined with an eagerness to throw himself into the thick of combat and move right up close, armed with only a Leica M3 or Nikon F and 21mm wide-angle lens.
Tim almost died four times covering the war. The closest shave, in 1969, abruptly ended his tenure in Vietnam. Stepping out of a helicopter to offload the wounded, a nearby soldier stepped on a landmine and shrapnel was embedded in his skull. From the incident he was pronounced Tim dead not once, but twice! He was miraculously revived and sent to the US for a long recovery.
This began the next chapter, best described as a decade-long LSD-fuelled road trip across the US. He became a part of the Gonzo journalism movement, working for underground rock magazines like Crawdaddy covering the counter-culture movement consisting of hippies, acid, Vietnam veterans, rock’n’roll and other weirdness. His life partner, Marianne Harris, likens Tim as ‘the Forrest Gump of LSD’ as he often found himself bearing witness to pivotal moments in the 60s and 70s.
But behind a rock’n’roll lifestyle of fast times and excessive consumption was a generous man driven by a genuinely good nature and a true belief in peace and the power of photography. Here’s an excerpt from an excellent obituary written by Australian photojournalist and Tim’s friend, Ben Bohane.
‘He was a humanist, first and foremost, always alive to the power of photography and art to change perceptions and highlight the folly of war. It was through his disgust at the Vietnam War that Page became friends with disillusioned vets such as Ron Kovic (Born on the 4th of July), supporting their protests.
It was apparently a few nights in Frankie’s house with Page, Sean Flynn and others that “turned” Daniel Ellsberg from being a pro-war RAND corporation analyst to a whistleblower releasing the Pentagon Papers, printed in the Washington Post after the New York Times pulled it at the last moment. The ensuing scandal changed perceptions in America and helped turn the tide against the war. The original Pentagon Papers were called “Papers on a war”. Ellsberg gave Page a copy inscribed with the words: “To Tim who may well have changed the course of the war”.
Page and a group of freelancers, such as his best friend Sean Flynn (son of Errol Flynn) and Martin Stuart Fox, had the freedom to ride choppers and report from across the region in what is sometimes considered the first television war, but also the last war that correspondents could cover freely before US censorship and “embeds” changed the nature of modern war reporting.’
Bohane notes how Tim’s famous quotes often contradict one another, with Tim saying ‘Take the glamour out of war! I mean, how the bloody hell can you do that? It’s like trying to take the glamour out of sex, trying to take the glamour out of the Rolling Stones. I mean, you know that it can’t be done.’ Then, at another moment, Tim famously said ‘the only good war photograph is an anti-war photograph’.
That, right there, is the complex duality of human nature – the tug-o-war between good and evil, love and hate – a theme Tim effortlessly captured with his camera.
After his exploits across the US, Tim found himself living an idyllic lifestyle in Australia with Marianne. His last years were spent living on beautiful acreage in Bellingen. Why Bellingen? Well, it’s a lovely rural bohemian community skirted by dense forest. And it’s in the ‘green triangle’, Tim explains, where it ain’t too hard to score. He was currently working on a second photo book, American Whiplash, with Australian photojournalist, Stephen Dupont.
It’s the sequel to his Vietnam pictorial compendium, Nam Contact, which Inside Imaging had the honour of briefly hearing him speak about. A thought-provoking hour-long discussion, and like the many thousands fortunate enough to cross paths with Tim, it left a lasting impression. A true maverick until the end.
There is far, far more to the remarkable photographer and human. Too much to cover in a single article. Fortunately, there is a wealth of resources written about, and by, the legendary Tim Page.
I never knew you, I was never a photographer and certainly never saw any real life conflict… but I admired and marveled at your exploits… thank you for those images Tim.
Vale