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Through the Lens of Jeffrey Gamble: Remembering Biggie (Part 2)
Interview By: John Kennedy
 June 29, 1995 is a date that Jeffrey Gamble will never forget. On this particular night, the then-budding photographer took on a job of a lifetime: the opportunity to conduct a photo shoot with the Notorious B.I.G. A warm, tender expression is unmistakably apparent on the face of Gamble as he reminisces on the shoot and the ambiance in the streets of Brooklyn, as the borough’s undisputed lyrical champ was on top of the world. Continue reading part two of Nobodysmiling’s exclusive sit down with the man behind the camera of Trace magazine’s latest cover, which may likely become a historic glimpse of a fallen hip-hop icon…
 Nobodysmiling.com : So Biggie has been gone for years now, yet your pictures are just now coming out ten years after they were taken. Was this always your plan or did everything just happen that way?
Jeffrey Gamble : Yes, believe it or not, it was at the time. I didn’t really know that it would actually be a decade, but it was a plan because this here [points to cover shot] is a dream come true. This is a dream for me and it’s a dream that I would like to share with other people, for instance in my community, in Crown Heights, or wherever it reaches, to let young brothers and sisters know that dreams do come true. I’ll give you a little story about the layout in the magazine: when I shot it ten years ago, I distributed the images that needed to be distributed to the sources and after that I just sat on them. Biggie got killed and it hurt me so much. And I was feeling his music so much, and being around Brooklyn – I felt like if I sold the images, it would almost be like selling part of my soul or his soul at that moment in time, because it’s like he just died and people were trying to make money off of him. I wasn’t really there in my heart. I really just didn’t want to do it yet. About four or five years after I took the images, I made a small version of the layout, almost like what’s in the magazine now. And the funny thing is I cropped a particular image right here in the studio in the back and I said, “That’s going to be my cover one day.” I didn’t know what magazine or where. And honestly speaking, about two or three months ago, when I went to Trace magazine to show the layout of the story that I had, the same image that I envisioned as the cover is the one they picked for the cover. And then the rest was the on inside.
So getting back to the question, I held back on it because to me it’s like wine, it’s like value – anything of precious value that you give time, it gives you a certain kind of credibility. Now, a decade later, it has that value because no one in the world has that specific image. No one in the world has seen that selection of images; they may have other selections from that event, but not from Jeff Gamble’s perspective. So the reason I held off was because I knew in my heart one day that it would become something of value and it would become a cover of a magazine. I didn’t really know it was going to be Trace, but I knew in my heart that it was going to become a cover one day.
Nobodysmiling.com : Did you know Biggie personally?
Jeffery Gamble : I didn’t know him personally, but I grew up in like a mile radius of him, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Lil’ Cease – it was all the same area. I didn’t know him, but I knew his associates and people like that. As a matter of fact, one of the key members of the Junior M.A.F.I.A. clique was a high school classmate of mine. So indirectly, I knew [Biggie], but I didn’t really know him personally.
Nobodysmiling.com : Can you recreate the shoot for the readers? For instance, what was going on that night? What was going on around that time? What was Biggie like? What was the overall vibe? Describe the shoot in general, as you remember it.
 Jeffrey Gamble : One thing I remember is that it was very hot in New York City. It was humid, it was hot, and the streets were hot with Biggie’s music. Especially “Who Shot Ya?,” that was like #1 on the radio. I was very nervous because it was my first celebrity act, but when he came he was very nonchalant, but at the same time looked like he had a lot on his mind. You couldn’t predict that he was necessarily happy, but he was definitely in a mode that you couldn’t take him out of. It was hard doing different shots in the limo and backstage, but it was a very exciting time as well, because after the shoot we moved on to the New York City Palladium where we did the remaining shots. He was in that mode of celebrating selling a million copies. In that time period in the hip-hop game, artists weren’t selling a million copies - maybe 500,000 or 200,000.
He didn’t really speak that much; he was just a person that whatever you told him to do, he would do. If he didn’t like it he wouldn’t do it, he was straightforward like that. And if he didn’t really know your vibe or feel your vibe, he wouldn’t really do too many things. The limo shot is what really opened him up to me, because at that particular moment I had a one-to-one encounter with him and I was asking him “How do you feel about your song being the number one hit on the radio?” And he just nodded his head and said “Real good.” You could see the proudness in him, but at the same time you could see that he was busting up with a lot of energies of people around, because fame does bring a lot of energies. And you don’t always want to deal with those energies. Those energies can really make your day go either good or bad. Sometimes you have to deal with it and make it work.
But the shoot went smoothly throughout the night. He was very easy to work with. I remember it was very humble and at that point in time it was all about B.I.G., it was all about “Who Shot Ya?” He was the man, he was the main spotlight of the street of the time and that created its own buzz. Another thing that I remember from that day is the idea of how much joy he had in terms of receiving that platinum plaque, which is one of the images in the magazine as well. He was just being himself, partying a little bit, not really worrying about or fearing anything at that moment. But he was very nonchalant; he wasn’t about ego, like some other artists. He wasn’t about that. He was on pretty much on time. Puff at that time was his right-hand man – that was his manager along with Mark Pitts. Those guys were there and a lot of entourages were around but I tried to exclude him from the entourage to get my personal documentary-style view of who I felt he was or what he represented to me. To me, he was a very intelligent lyricist. He was a person who came from good background, Jamaican parents. I'm of West Indian parentage myself, so I know how West Indians raise their children. Even now when you look at etiquette of how he dressed or how he came across, you could see that he came from good upbringing.
Nobodysmiling.com : I noticed that all of the shots are in black and white. Could you discuss some of the other elements you used with in the photos?
Jeffrey Gamble : They’re portraits. But they were shot in a journalistic style because I was coming from a school with a journalism/portraits/fashion [focus]. So this style of shooting was very much portraits/reportage. Straight black and white, printed in black and white. And the reason I shot it black and white is because the impact comes out better in black and white, as opposed to color. It has a more lasting impression, when you look at the cover that’s about to come out now. Pretty much that was my thing, I was actually specializing in black and white as that moment of time. Not only was it less expensive to work with, but it was easier for me as a developing photographer to work with black and white. The scenes were pretty much in the streets outside of the old Bad Boy offices. Then from there it went to the limo then from there we went into the Palladium and where we did several shots. So it’s really just documenting everything that was going on around that night and the scene that was created celebrated that night as well. A majority of the images were done at the Palladium where they had the major event, the major party. The major aspect in the magazine of was the scene on the stage, which captured the spirit in motion. My whole idea was to capture him nonchalant and capture him in a sense that he’s not really aware of me.
[Pointing to a spread in the magazine] Lil’ Kim is here, Jermaine Dupri, Lil’ Cease.
No one knew B.I.G. would be this big to this day, but even a shot like that is a wonderful shot in Trace that captures the soul in a still moment, but moving. And that came from reportage photography, capturing the spirit in a still format, in other words, being able to freeze his spirit in the moment and at the same time capture the essence of movement.
[Continues to point to photos from the magazine]
This one showed it more but this one shows it a little less because you can see he’s in a limo, but you don’t know where he’s going. It’s always something very static; you can tell he’s doing something. Here he’s not just holding the mic, at that point there he’s rapping to hundreds of people in that particular shot. I would say that’s my niche, definitely black and white to create strong contrast and to bring out the essence so when it hits you like ten years later, it hits you with impact. Boom. When you look at this cover shot it gives you a whole different view on him. I just love the traditional black and white with film, sometimes grey, just to give it that static graphic quality.
Nobodysmiling.com : How do you think this cover story and these pictures will affect your career as a photographer, particularly in the hip-hop, music and entertainment realm?
Jeffrey Gamble : Well, it’s always been my dream to really think about what I’ve been doing on a global level. I’m always thinking globally. And that’s one of the reasons that I took it upon myself to venture out to London, France, the Caribbean, anywhere. But honestly thinking, I think at this point in time this cover will allow the industry to increase value in terms of what I’ve been doing. I think through the process of this magazine being up there and different aspects of the promotion that are going to be associated with the magazine will open up the industry’s eyes to Jeffrey Gamble. They’ve heard the name, but sometimes it takes one thing to say “This is it.”
But as I'm looking at this cover and this artwork before me, I hope that it could allow me to go into the realm of me continuously making people look good, putting them in beautiful light, making them look happy, whether it’s a female or a male. As a matter of fact, I have two other covers coming out. One is of Lisa Raye, which is making her look really beautiful and also another cover is of an actress named La Chanze, who is the lead actress of The Color Purple on Broadway, which just opened with Oprah Winfrey as the executive producer.
 But this means so much to me because not only is it B.I.G., who’s no longer here with us, being on the cover and me having photographed him, but also Trace has it’s own weight. Trace magazine is a major commodity for me to be a part of as far as urban culture and urban identities. So that’s what I would like to transcend; maybe [the industry] will look at my other work that kind of associates with the whole picture. And take it from there, continuously growing from that point.
Nobodysmiling.com : Looking at the Biggie cover shot, what song comes to mind?
Jeffrey Gamble : “Who Shot Ya?” That’s what always kind of rang a bell. Either that or “Hypnotize.”
The December 2005 issue of Trace, which features Jeffrey Gamble’s photos of Biggie, is on newsstands now. More of his work can be viewed in his online portfolio at www.jeffrey-gamble.com.
Back To Part 1: Jeffrey Gamble: Confessions of A Hip-Hop Photographer
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