Ed Bonja - the man who shot Elvis
Mr Bonja worked with the music superstar for almost seven years, up until a couple of months before he died.
As Elvis’ only official photographer, he built a large collection of images of the star snapped during hundreds of concerts, and intimate portraits taken in his private jet and home.
Most of those he took before 1975, when Presley was still strikingly handsome.
“I stopped taking pictures of him in June of 1975,” Mr Bonja said.
“When he came back to the tour he looked like he had put on weight, so I waited, but he never went back to what he used to be like.”
Mr Bonja said he walked away from the tour because the punishing lifestyle was killing him, too.
Back in those days, the tour manager didn’t just make sure the star of the show had everything they desired, they also had to sell mechandise and count the money at the end of the night.
“It was a different world in the 1970s,” he said.
Now Mr Bonja spends much of his time travelling the world, riding the wave of Elvis’ fame.
One of the things he often shares with people about his famous friend was that he was “a normal guy”.
“Some people who don’t know much about him find it hard to believe that he was really shy, people would give him compliments and he would blush,” Mr Bonja said.
“He wondered if people would remember him when he died and, well, here we are 35 years later.”
A collection of 150 of Mr Bonja’s photographs will be displayed at the Commercial Club on Saturday and Sunday.
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