Lou Reed takes his best shots

Jan. 19, 2006 | The first thing Lou Reed does when he walks into the Steven Kasher gallery, which will open one-half of his first major New York photography exhibit, "Lou Reed: New York," on Friday, is make fun of my name (too punny). The second thing he does is make fun of my tape recorder (too low-tech). Then, after he scolds the genial gallery owner about the font of some signage that displeases him, he settles in across a table from me, arms arranged protectively before him, fixes me with that cold stare that's oft been called reptilian and takes my questions.

Well, he doesn't exactly take my questions, but he does talk to me, and over the course of the next 45 minutes -- longer, much to the surprise and confusion of the trio of press handlers eavesdropping on our conversation from behind a half-wall, than our scheduled time -- the rock icon reveals himself to be a man of opposites, as high-contrast as the Warhol-era photography that first seriously inspired him to pick up a camera nearly three decades ago.

A notoriously difficult interview -- he has called journalists "vermin" -- Reed, 63, is, in fact, fiercely protective, even evasive, speaking over some questions, refusing to answer others, putting me on notice every step of the way. But as he carries our conversation along, with me and my ignored list of questions trailing hopefully after him, it becomes clear that something else is going on here: Reed is yearning to make contact, longing to be understood. C'mon, babe, he seems to be saying to me as, mid-interview, he reaches out and gives my hand an encouraging pat, take a walk on the wild -- or at least the wildly colorful -- side.

That's where his photography comes in. Reed's photos, which will also be shown uptown at the Gallery at Hermès and compiled and released as a book, offer the world a chance to look at New York through Lou Reed's eyes. Taken over the last three years, some of them from the window of Reed's own apartment, the photos are a vivid exploration of light and movement, and they are surprisingly beautiful, even -- dare I say? -- sentimental. Devoid of people, replete with brilliant sunsets and neon, they're certainly not the gritty-underbelly shots you'd expect from the man who, in his Velvet Underground days, turned out songs like "Heroin" and "Sister Ray." But Lou Reed, who catches me off guard by enveloping me in a warm hug as we wrap up our interview and then pulls me back into the gallery to look at one last photo he's sure I'll particularly enjoy, is nothing if not a man of surprises.

How long have you been taking photos and when did you start taking it seriously?

You know, I don't know, a long time. I started because of touring, constantly being in situations where it's like ... you know, I get to see some things that most people don't, I think it's fair to say, or from a view that they might not ever have. And just for myself, some of what I saw was just so beautiful. I like cameras anyway, and I was playing around for a long, long, long time. If you really want to know how long, it goes all the way back to the '70s. I did a tour where I had 60 monitors in 12 stacks of five that I was running these customized videotapes on that I had made through customized video cameras. It was very high contrast. That's when I started.

So is it --

Let's see, '78, '79, '80 ... that's 20, 22, plus 6  28 years, playing around.

It sounds like the technology really drives your interest. Is that true?

Well, the technology's really great fun because it opens certain doors to ways of doing things or seeing things, or if you saw it and couldn't get it before, the new technology might make it so you could get it, whatever "it" might be, you know? And to this day, a lot of things I use are customized. I do that in everything.

Do you use different cameras for different situations?

Yes, if you have two different cameras looking at the same thing, you get two different results. It's kind of amazing. I'm very much in love with a particular lens on a Contax camera. It's a perfect wide-angle lens. It's just like a piece of jewelry; you could wear it as a ring. It's so beautiful, the engineering, everything about it is just so ... Looking through the viewfinder for me is like being in a movie theater. That's what I like about it.

It's interesting --

It's not the same as real life. At all.

It does --

It's very much a director editing a movie. And in digital as the bit rate, the megabytes and all this, goes up, you can start really looking at it as a movie director going through this material and isolating it through cropping.

Are there --

I'm following the technology as more things become available. I really am a big fan of digital in audio as well as optics.

Are there --

I mean, I wished for certain things in a camera and what I was wishing for turned out to be digital. I was trying to do all kinds of things in analog that in digital just come with it.

So you were able to have kind of a breakthrough?

I'm not one of those people mourning the loss of film or tape. Believe me. Things are just different. I understand the love of it. I also think that's that and that was that a long time ago. This is just the beginning of the whole ... It's the equivalent of the invention of the airplane.

What made you --

I mean, if you still want to take a bicycle, that's OK. Some people always love that. But I mean, it's apples and oranges. There's always going to be people saying, that's not as good as this: Vinyl isn't as good as CD; CD is clearer than vinyl. Whatever suits your purposes, you could go back and forth. They're not exclusionary.

What about --

But when I sat around, I said, "Geez, I wish ..." And that wish was digital. I just didn't know it at the time.

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