Shot By Ed Bonja

Ed Bonja..I´ve heard from this guy before, but where? Oh that’s right; he was the “official” photographer of Elvis Presley. Everybody has seen his pictures as all of the original 70´s albums features his pictures on the covers. If you like them? Well, that depends on your own personal taste.

Bonja got the “job” via his cousin Tom Diskin, who was the right (and maybe also the left) hand of Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’s dutch manager. The job actually only existed on paper as Ed Bonja was barely involved with what happened to the pictures after he had shot them and he didn’t got paid for the job.

Right now in front of me lies the first and long awaited photo book from Mr. Bonja. Was it worth the wait?? Well, yes and no quite frankly. Let’s take a further look at the book.

Design: The book looks pretty nice in my opinion with a terrific photo from the June 1972 tour on the front and an equally great picture from one of the Honolulu shows Elvis did in November 1972. (ok, for completits, this picture was taken at the November 17th evening show) Elvis is bending over ready to burst out in Hound Dog. It’s a rather “sober” design, but this only helps the presentation of the book.

Contents: Most of the content of this book are the pictures (duuuhh, that’s why they call it a photo book lol), and a small part is text. Most of the pictures are featured in chronological order which is definitely a plus to this book. The pictures are covering the years 1970 – 1975.

Accuracy: This is by far the least part of this (otherwise nice) book. There are a few errors inside the book which are detrimental. Here is a enumeration of the errors as found inside the book:

· Page 6: not from November 13th 1971, but from April 6th 1972
· Page 7: not April 2nd 1972, but from April 18th 1972. (Elvis didn’t perform on April 2nd)
· Page 17: not from April 17th 1972, but from January 26th 1973
· Page 24: Not from 1972, but from 1970
· Page 46: see page 6, same picture, same description. A bit careless!!
· Page 57: not from January 25th 1973, but from January 26th. (Elvis didn’t perform on January 25th)
· Page 83: same picture as on page 5. Again a bit careless!!

Text: Very little text in this book as mentioned before ( a bit like the Tunzi books). The forward is over two pages and is printed, very irritatingly, in capitol letters. Beats me why they did that, but it is very tiring for ones eyes. Furthermore there are the dates by the pictures and a few lines here and there which are accompying certain pictures.

Pictures: Well, this is what it is all about, isn’t it?? I could write a long story about them, or a short one….I will settle for the middle road option here. Most of the pictures are never before been published, which is very nice. And what about the quality? Well, to be honest with you, it’s not awful, but compared with photo books from colleague photographers like Shaver and/or Alverson this is a rather poor book. But the obscurity of the pictures makes up for that. Some of the highlights include series of the following shows:

· April 17th, wearing the Red Burning Love Suit.
· January 26th, 27th and 28th 1973, Las Vegas pictures.
· June 23rd 1973, wearing the Red Flower Suit.

The pictures from 1973 are certainly the most welcome, but most of the time badly focussed and/or blurry. A real pity, because pictures from 1973 (especially from early Vegas) are very rare, and are a worthwhile addition to most collections. This book contains furthermore pictures from 6 shows from the November 1972 tour, some 1975 photo’s and some loose ends.

Conclusion: I would say that this book deserves to be in everyone’s collection, mostly because of the inclusion of the 1973 pictures. and the overall quality of the book. And if you ever wonder why you bought this book, well take a look at the picture on page 76……WOW!!


2003/05/12 Stefan Kock / Ep.Gold.Com.