“Elvis who?” was photographer Alfred Wertheimer’s response when, in early 1956, a publicist asked him to photograph an up-and-coming crooner from Memphis. Little did Wertheimer know that this would be the job of his life: just 21 years old, Elvis Presley was – as we now know – about to become a legend.
Trailing Presley like a shadow, Wertheimer took nearly 3,000 photographs of the singer that year, a man poised on the brink of superstardom. Wertheimer’s Elvis project immortalised a young man in the very process of making history.
