L is for Lvov, Ukraine. But I’m not there long enough to get anecdotes other than being in a hotel with two colleagues, Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink. We ask to see the rooms before checking in, we’re shown three rooms, each room has three beds, each room costs 6 USD to rent. We’ll take them we say. Which one says the receptionist. Them all we answer. At 6 dollars a room, we hire 3 rooms, 9 beds, for the three of us. No expenses spared. The receptionist looks at us incredulously.

L is for London. And the hours spent waiting between folio sessions, between seeing picture desks, between leave me your card, I’ll be in touch. London between picture editors flicking through your folio whilst looking across the room at something else.

L is for Lerwick, Shetland Isles. And assignments photographing Ukrainian and Romanian klondykers fishing boats and fishermen. And for assignments where some locals, out on a stag night, tarring and feathering one of their own, grab me and try to haul me into the port, into the water, cameras and all. I lash out and nearly get wet, and nearly get a kicking. Lerwick, lovely place.

L is for Lagerfeld, Karl.

So the email pops in, from a reputable magazine, a new client, one I haven’t worked for before, and it’s an assignment, “Can you spend two days photographing Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel?”. It’s a gift. A gift of a job. How can you not go wrong? Two days with Kaiser Karl himself. Easy peasey Japanesey.

So the brief continues, “you have exclusive access”, “you have access all areas” etc etc. Too easy I thought. So I fire off an email to the People That Be, his fixers, the Chanel PR people, the people that matter. All is explained, all is confirmed, all is agreed, all is good.

All is not always as it seems, all is not always as agreed, all is not always as promised, on the day of the assignment. In Ginza, Tokyo, the Chanel shop is opening, a big hullaballoo in black fashion tweeds, fake school badges and expensive bags. I’m there at my allotted time, and so is Karl Lagerfeld- designer, photographer, publisher, model, film star, celebrity, Kaiser, collector, icon, empire, and the eye of a storm of an entourage.

I explain to the PR people who I am, ah yes, and lovely to meet you’s, come this way, wait here, I’ll be right back. Meanwhile Karl Lagerfeld is going on with his business and I’m not shooting. I don’t have the Access All Areas, the exclsuive access. I speak to his PR, I speak to his muse, I speak to his bodyguard, I speak to his photography assistants. I’m still no closer.

The morning has disappeared and I’m nowhere. I’ve got nothing. No access. But then it all changes, you just need to meet the right people. I get introduced to his Right Hand Woman. Not his PR people from Tokyo, or his PR people from Paris, not his press officer, not his assistants, not anyone I’d emailed and arranged everything with, but this woman, his Right Hand Woman, a small grandmotherly figure. She asks in blunt Parisian fashion ” what do you want?” I explain what I was told. She pulls my arm, meaning me no harm, and I go with her.

The door opens, and there’s a storm of people inside, with Karl Lagerfeld in the middle. She pushes us through, and I’m frustrated by this point. I’m on what should be a great assignment for a new client, a prestigious magazine with a picture desk that is famous to crack. This is my chance. I’ve been handed a plum assignment, one it is hard to go visually wrong on. But so far the hours have ticked past and I’ve got nowhere. But here I am, being pushed by a Parisian granny towards Karl Lagerfeld. The seas part before Moses and there I am, in front of him. I  waste no time, I stick out my hand, “Mr. Lagerfeld, sir, hello, I’m from a Famous Magazine, and I’ve been told I could have 2 days with you to shoot a reportage….”. He takes me hand, he listens, “ah, I thought you were for some Japanese magazine”. It’s sorted, I’m in. Access All Areas.

The next day and a half I’m in the entourage. People eye me cautiously, but Karl seems fine, the media are asked to leave and I stay. Someone asks his bodyguard “what about him?” or words like that but in French, the kick boxer bodyguard all clean shaven and dapper in his white shirt and expensive suit nods, all is good, all is fine, all is as arranged.

Karl goes into an elevator, and he’s beside a mirror, reflected, two for the price of one. I shoot a frame, as I check the image and complain about the lighting he scolds me for shooting in such dire light. I tell him I don’t have the luxury of choosing when and where to shoot. He laughs, he smiles, he feels pity.

I await a few minutes to do a ‘considered portrait’, a set up portrait of Karl Lagerfeld, not reportage, not grabbed. He’s agreed, he’s fine with it. We’re in the upper floors of the Chanel building, cream walls, cream carpets up to your knees, glass walls and glass doors all around. Karl is there, as ever in the middle of a group, standing holding court, wearing his big black shades. He’s agreed to a portrait in one of the rooms to the side, nice clean cream walls, a vase of lillies. Should be fine. He’s agreed, the entourage parts, let’s do it he says. A gentleman. We walk towards to office, and SMACK. Karl wearing his big black shades walks straight into a glass wall. SMACK. Like a pigeon hitting a window. Cue chaos, cue PR people, cue entourage running over. Cue blood above the eye of the famous iconic Karl Lagerfeld. Cue photographer thinking, aw for f*cks sake there goes my portrait shoot. Dab dab, are you ok, yes yes, he looks over at me, stands, lets do it, and strides once more to the side office, this time opening the glass door before attempting to go through it. Into the office, me in tow. Cue portrait session with Star. Cue amazed photographer with dazed Star.

In the portrait session for some reason Andy Warhol is mentioned. Karl tells me he was in a Warhol movie. Oh, which one I ask. Ha, I can’t tell you that he says. Refusing to elaborate.

It’s later, we’re in the Imperial Hotel, I mix with his photographer assistants. Photographers in their own rights with their own businesses, but On Call for Karl. They drop things at the drop of a hat, they go to the airport, they’re whisked around the world on shoots with Karl. They tell me it can be hard, but it’s educational, Karl shoots at random, shooting this, shooting here, seemingly unconnected objects, people and places. But, they tell me, it all comes together. It gradually takes shape, the images link up, the projects coincide, the work matters and it’s all relevant, it’ all part of a grand plan, it’s all part of Karl’s vision. They assist, they whisk, they learn. It sounded great.

And then I’m backstage. We’re in Hibiya park, in a huge tent of a fashion show. There’s naked women everywhere, 18 year old naked women models everywhere. Life is good, life is great. But I’m not allowed to shoot, I’m asked to be respectful and polite. But I’m still with Karl, on assignment for a Famous Magazine, I’m all over him like a bad suit, all over him like cheap perfume. When he goes here I go here, he goes there I go there. There’s good light, there’s models, he’s wearing a kilt, I tell him a kilt story, he makes an innuendo joke at me, but I walked into it, it’s my own fault. His assistant passes him a bunch of polaroids which have been shot, he looks at the polaroids, he looks at me, he passes me a polaroid of me and him crossing the road in Ginza.

He’s backstage, fixing clothes, tinkering with lapels and hemlines. He’s checking here, talking to models there. He’s loved, he’s adored. He walks to the entrance to the show, the entrance to the red carpet, the models are ready for the lights, for action. He talks with the famous model the next new Kate Moss oh so young and Australian Gemma Ward. She’s the second model I’ve recognised, the first being Alex Wek earlier that day. I’m glad I pay attention to celebrity magazines, to popular culture, to Vogue. I’d tried to photograph Gemma Ward earlier at make-up as she ate an apple, but she’d asked me not to. This time I shooot, and she doesn’t obejct, perhaps as Karl Lagerfeld is with me.

The fashion show finishes, Karl is gone, but reappears at a party. I’m still floating around, but by now I have enough images. It’s been too easy. I leave Karl to his canapes and his kisses on the cheeks of his adoring public, I exit the tent into the Ginza night. I flag down a taxi, and the driver speaks English. I’m amazed, I ask how he knows English, he taught himself listening to the radio he tells me.

The Karl edit takes a long time, there’s too much. He was a Star in many ways, a star of fashion, a star of photography and popular culture. And for my shoot he did all I asked, even with grazed eye, what a star, once I had broken through the ring of protection called PR people and press officers and bodyguards and muses, once through all them I was In.

I send my edit to New York. The picture desk is happy. I’m happy. I await publication. I’m excited. I want to see the spread, to see photographs of Karl Lagerfeld by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert for a Famous Magazine.

The article gets axed. My pictures never run.