Dominique Tarlé - Recording Exile

Dominique Tarlé is an acclaimed French photographer best known for his association with The Rolling Stones. The Stones escaped the UK's punitive tax regime in 1971 and decamped to the South of France at Villa Nellcôte, where Keith had set up house with Anita Pallenberg and their son Marlon. It became the location where Exile On Main Street was recorded, with the help of a mobile recording truck connected to a basement studio. Tarle recounted to the New York Times that, “A carnival of characters paraded through: Terry Southern, Gram Parsons, John Lennon, even a tribal band from Bengal… dope dealers from Marseille; petty thieves, who stole most of the drugs and half the furniture; and hangers-on, all of them there to witness what was happening.”

Tarle’s beautifully evocative photographs from Nellcote are renowned among Stones fans the world over. They have been the subject of a sold-out, limited edition Genesis Publications volume, Exile (2002). In an interview about the book, Tarle said, “… I realised that pictures are far more important than the photographers themselves. For myself, I could only say that the whole of the game was to remain invisible and to have the least possible impact on what was going on around me.”