‘I only had a few seconds’: How photographer’s shot of Kate Moss went down in history

By Oscar Holland, CNN

(CNN) — When photographer Greg Brennan spotted Kate Moss in a fur coat at the bottom of a fire exit, cigarette in hand, he knew he’d stumbled across something special. The year was 2007, and what he didn’t realize is that one of the resulting photos — not even his favorite from the night — would become an emblem of the supermodel’s “party era” and the best-known image of his near-four-decade career.

The mid-aughts photo’s enduring appeal is, partly, its mundanity. In that quiet, unguarded moment, Moss was just like any other 30-something having a night out on the town. And yet she is perhaps the only person who could appear that put-together while being ambushed in a stairwell. “It’s kind of a mixture between a ballerina and Janis Joplin,” Brennan said in a video call from his home in London. “It’s very rock ‘n’ roll.”

Moss had developed a reputation for enjoying a night out during the “heroin chic” party girl era of the ’90s, as the press did its best (or, perhaps, worst?) to document her every move.

Not all was as it seemed, though. For one thing, Brennan believes Moss was completely sober when he took the shot. “I read all sorts of nonsense,” added the now-53-year-old photographer, saying that his most famous image is also among the most misunderstood. “I read that she tripped on her dress, that she fell down the stairs, that it was 4 a.m. — none of that was accurate. None.”

Brennan’s new book, “The Big Shot,” intends to set the record straight. It also details the combination of seasoned experience and blind luck that led the British photographer to the back door of a London theater on the model’s 33rd birthday. (Moss’ representatives, meanwhile, did not respond to CNN’s request for her her own version of events.)

In 2007, Moss was at the height of her powers. It was the year Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people and Forbes listed her as the world’s second highest-earning model (behind only Gisele Bündchen). Wedding rumors swirled around her relationship with Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty. Against a backdrop of intense tabloid attention, Brennan was assigned to The Dorchester hotel in London to photograph the model’s birthday party, which had become “a kind of annual media event,” he said.

Soon after Brennan’s arrival, word spread among the waiting press that Moss and Doherty were still over a mile away at Donmar Warehouse, a theater in London’s West End. He rushed across town only to find a mob of photographers and curious onlookers clogging the entrance.

Then, a stroke of luck — or bad luck, as it seemed at the time: The batteries of Brennan’s flash unit were nearly flat. Returning to his car a few streets away, he remembered the theater had a fire escape that doubled as a back door. (Here, experience paid off: In the late 1990s, he had captured Nicole Kidman leaving the building via the very same exit.)

The photographer made a quick detour, “just to check,” he recalled. “She was just sitting there on the stairs, smoking. I walked past the door, took one look and knew I had a few seconds, if that, to act.”

Poking his camera through the ajar door, Brennan fired off a series of 10 images. As the shutter clicked, he heard a vehicle pull up outside. It was only then that he realized what was happening: The couple had sent another car to the front entrance as a decoy while they snuck out the back. Moss and Doherty (who is just out of shot) took their leave — and, in a move Brennan admits was part politeness and part professional hustle, he even helped the supermodel open the car door, hastening their exit. After all, rival photographers were fast approaching, and he wanted the moment for himself.

Brennan didn’t bother returning to The Dorchester. He sent a selection of photos to his editors and went home confident that he had the night’s best pictures. He did not, however, expect to find one of them splashed across almost every British tabloid the next day.

It turned out Brennan had an effective monopoly: Moss had successfully dodged the cameras for much of the night, so newspapers instead published his stairwell image alongside tales of the celebrations she went on to enjoy. The Daily Mail printed the photo alongside reports of an “all-drinking, all-dancing” 24-hour party. A caption suggested that it showed Moss taking a “partying pause” rather than simply waiting for a ride. Other outlets printed the photo besides reports that Moss partied in a bathroom (The Daily Mirror) and had a “birthday row” with Doherty (The Daily Star).

Brennan’s image had become debaucherous by association. But that was no surprise in a notoriously toxic period for British tabloids that subjected female stars (both homegrown and American, like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears) to invasions of privacy and public hounding.

The media narrative around Moss was, at the time, one of excess. A 2005 drug scandal had cost her several high-profile modeling contracts amid investigations by British police. (The Daily Mail had declared on its cover that “Cocaine Kate’s” career was “in ruins,” though she was never charged and was named Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards the next year.)

“I understand why they do it,” Brennan said of how his photo was presented. “Kate having a cigarette, sitting on the stairs, doesn’t really sell newspapers.”

But Brennan, who has photographed Moss numerous times in the 2000s, disputed the “party Kate” reputation that surrounded her. “I’ve never really seen her in that way,” he said, adding of his famous photo: “I just see one of my favorite models looking her absolute best at the peak of her career.”

Yet, his favorite shot from the encounter isn’t the one the world knows — he prefers one taken fractionally later in which Moss is on her feet, heading to the door. “It’s more catwalk-y,” Brennan said. He included it in his book, while accepting that photographers don’t control which of their images capture the public imagination.

“They say that every good photographer, at some point in their career, should have one image that transcends all others,” he said. “And I feel I’ve achieved it with this one — but it wasn’t intentional.”

“The Big Shot: Photographs by Greg Brennan,” published by ACC Art Books, is available now.

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