DAKOTA FAWNING The couple pauses outside their CPW home.

Photograph: Allan Tannenbaum

“You know what I like about your pictures?” photographer Allan Tannenbaum recalls John Lennon asking him in November 1980. “You really capture Yoko’s beauty.” Tannenbaum, then chief lensman for the SoHo Weekly News, had just shot promotional photos for what would be the pair’s final album, Double Fantasy: Days after that conversation, Lennon was shot dead by Mark David Chapman. On Saturday 5, Tannenbaum appears at the Museum of the City of New York to present images from his latest book, John & Yoko: A New York Love Story (Random House, $45), a collection of intimate portraits that show the duo strolling in Central Park, working in their home office at the Dakota and cavorting in a Soho gallery. He discussed his work—and his relationship with rock’s most iconic couple—while driving through the East Village.

In your photos, John and Yoko seem very at ease in front of the camera. Didn’t they just emerge from seclusion at that point?
They felt comfortable with me, and I liked them. It was hard to have a professional relationship with them without having a personal one, too—they had to know you and trust you. But they were pretty used to being photographed and filmed. Of course, John had acted in music videos, and in films like Help! and A Hard Day’s Night. And they’d even done their own nude portraits for Two Virgins.

Can you still have that sort of mutual trust between celebrities and photographers?
Things have gotten a lot more complicated and legalistic. When I worked for the Weekly News, I’d be able to just meet a star in a hotel room. I went to Jack Nicholson’s room at the Carlyle and had a good half hour with him, and I don’t remember a publicist being around to hurry me up. We were able to talk about New Jersey, where we’re both from. That just doesn’t happen anymore.

And nightclubs have become stalkerazzi magnets.
When I used to go to Studio 54, there would be a handful of photographers, and we were allowed inside. When the stars got fed up, we’d go have a drink and hang out until there was another photo opportunity. Now there are hordes of photographers outside, and maybe one house photographer inside. It’s been corporatized. And I would say the fun is definitely gone.

We hear you’re still friendly with Yoko.
I was one of the photographers she asked to shoot her 75th birthday last month. She wanted it low-key, so we could get our shots and then relax with old friends. But that’s rare.

Allan Tannenbaum speaks at MCNY on Apr 5, 2008.