EDITOR’S NOTE: In Snap, we look at the power of a single photograph, chronicling stories about how both modern and historical images have been made.
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 during 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 Janice Joplin,” Brennan said during 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.”
