art and design

My 15 minutes

Our interviews with Warhol's friends and collaborators continue with photojournalist Nat Finkelstein, "court photographer" to the Factory during the mid-1960s.

The major piece that Andy Warhol and I collaborated on was the book, The Andy Warhol Index. It came about when I was at a party at The Factory. I was getting it on with this girl on the couch and when I looked up, what I saw was decadence. So I decided I wanted to photograph this aspect of American society, as part of the counter-culture emerging at that time.

One of Andy's greatest achievements was to create a synthesis of the talents around him. At the time I was pushing film to its utmost limit, using compressed tones, things people just weren't doing 40 years ago. Andy gave me the freedom to fuck up.

I always felt the hedonism at the Factory was a bit put on. What was going on hedonistically happened after hours. It would have been absolutely impossible to smoke weed at the Factory. The story goes that Michael Hollingsworth gave Andy some acid one time, but I doubt it. Andy was an amphetamine freak. You can see it in the repetition in his work.

I believe Andy stopped being a pop artist around this time. Pop art was bright colours, the use of primaries. Pop art was taking everyday objects and magnifying them like he did with the tomato soup cans. Andy completely eschewed that when he began to take the colour out of pop art and became anti-pop.

What effect did I have on Andy Warhol? Well, that is something for historians to judge. A lot of times he would let other people play around with the camera. But when it came to something important, it was always Andy behind that lens.

· Warhol is at Tate Modern, London SE1 (0870 166 8283), until April 1.

Most popular