RiffRaf

Great Rock Photographers: The Charles Peterson Interview (Pt. II)

                     
How did you start taking pictures, Charles? Was it something that just happened or did you study photography?

Well, I was a product of divorced parents and my single mother, for a number of years, pawned me off on my grandparents. My uncle who was 14 - and I think I was probably 6 -had a dark room in my grandmother’s laundry room closet. I spent a lot of time in there with him and just became fascinated with photography and started taking photo classes from about the 7^th grade on. Shot all through junior high and high school. Shot for the yearbook and newspaper and went on from there. So, for better or worse, it’s what I’ve known my whole life. Sometimes I feel like I just want to do something else, but that’s a little daunting, starting all over again at 48. Got a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UW in photography and started photographing bands throughout college.

What was your first paying gig?

I think my first paying gig was for The Rocket, which was a monthly. Actually, I think at that time it was a bimonthly, Seattle music newspaper. Tabloid. Later it became a monthly and then it went defunct in the mid to late 90s. It really just couldn’t compete with The Stranger and The Weekly and whatnot. Music only newspapers were kind of a dinosaur by that point with the rise of the alternative weekly newspapers.

What did they pay? Did they actually give you money?

Oh, I don’t know. Fifty bucks or something a picture. A hundred bucks maybe. Art Chantry was the Art Director at the time, a local graphic design legend. Charles Cross was the long time editor and owner of the paper, the publisher. Grant Alden was there at the time too. Later on he’d go onto No Depression. Just a great, great group of people. Lisa Orthwas there, a designer. She would do some of the early Sub Pop Records. It was kind of a family. I think the first thing Art assigned me to shoot was Cat Butt?

Who was that?

Cat Butt. The band Cat Butt.

I’m not familiar with them.

I think I shot half a roll of film or something at The Vogue one night, and I remember being really disappointed. They were pretty blurry. I was having some technical issues or something was going on. I brought them in and Art just thought they were brilliant and couldn’t decide on which one. He always said that I - as far as photographers go - have probably one of the best hit ratios of keepers that he’d ever experienced.

  

What was it like shooting Kurt? Was he cooperative?

Yeah, Kurt really had a good relationship with photographers. He really liked photography and appreciated it. I was a little shy with the camera, more shy with the camera back then, especially in sort of a portraits-of-your-friend-type situation.

Kurt was a little shy himself, so we were kind of a little awkward with each other sometimes. We got along and we talked, but we also came from different backgrounds as well.

You know how some people are like, “God, are you done yet?” He was always like, “Well are you sure? You wanna shoot some more?” I remember he asked me that one time, and it was the last time I photographed him. I could see his publicist over there, looking at her watch.

(Laughs) Was that after In Utero?

Yeah, yeah…after In Utero.

There are a couple of shots of Eddie Vedder. There’s one where he’s climbing the scaffold. I think that was an improvised decision on his part, and you were there. Were you standing on the stage when you took that picture?

Yeah, yeah, I was standing on the stage and he was probably like, “Uh, I don’t know, is he looking at my ass?” I don’t know, 60, 70, 80 feet up, something like that, and I was using a telephoto. I didn’t really use telephoto lenses that much, but I usually have one in the bag for situations like that. And, yeah, that was pretty…pretty epic.

I heard the band wasn’t too pleased with that decision of his.

No. I mean, he was just constantly putting his life on the line there, and it just would have been super, super ugly all around for everybody if something happened to him and fortunately it didn’t. I got to shoot them again in September up in Vancouver, the end of the Canadian tour—Mudhoney was opening. They were nice; they let me shoot the whole show.

Yeah, a little different than back in the mid-90s when I’d go on tour with them, and I could hang out backstage and crawl around wherever I wanted to on the stage.

                          
Were there more restrictions this time around?

There were a lot more restrictions, yeah. But it’s hard to show up right at the end of something too and just sort of pretend that you’re documenting it.

And they’re a little more insular now. Everyone’s got families. Mike [McCready] said, “Oh yeah, sorry dude.” The Vancouver shows are almost like playing a Seattle show, where it’s like everybody you know, families and friends and everybody wants to have a piece of them. It almost would’ve been easier if I had just gone to Winnipeg or something like that where they don’t know anybody.

You’ve been shooting Pearl Jam consistently for years. 

Yeah, I’ve missed a few years there, but yeah, it’s been fun collecting pictures, here and there, over the years. They’re an amazing band to shoot live. Eddie and I - we don’t see each other that often, but I feel a real connection with him. I actually dream about him all the time.

Wow.

Yeah (laughs)…which is really kind of strange. Yeah, I’ve had---I’ve dreamt about him for years.

What goes on in your dream?

It’s usually meeting somewhere, like backstage. This last crazy dream I had was at this big house-studio-complex out in the middle of nowhere that they all had, and there’s snow all around….

They’re really...they’re kind of...they’re so kind of…bizarre. Yeah, I think part of it is that when I went on tour with them in ’96 to Europe, it was a really rough time in my life. My first wife and I had just finally separated for good and I was just in a really, kind of down, dark space. They took me on this tour; I flew around on their private jet with them, and we stayed in four-star hotels in Prague, Budapest, Istanbul, Spain and Portugal. Eddie and I hung out a lot, just played Scrabble and talked and it was exactly what I needed in my life at that point. I think that’s part of what I come back to.

In the last few years, I’ve been doing a lot of visionary plant medicines with a shaman who’s South American-trained or Amazonian-trained. I dream about him a lot as well…this guy Francois. So it’s almost like a mentor-type personage.

Do you view Eddie as a mentor?

Um…yeah. I mean, it’s kind of mentor/peer, in a way. I think he’s a really inspiring person…and very complex. Amazingly difficult to get a hold of (laughs). He’s one of those people you can go like three years or whatever without seeing, and then you run into him again at a party and you’re just like, “Ah, dude, how ya doing?” It’s just like you catch up where you left off the last time.

  
So what’s next for you? What’s your next gig?

Um…I don’t know. It’s a little disconcerting. I’ve been kinda waking up in the middle of the night, going, “Oh fuck, what next?” Last year I spent so much time working on the archives and doing licensing and stuff. It was quite lucrative because of the whole 20^th anniversary of Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s 20^th anniversary, and several books coming out on grunge that I did covers for. Fender did a big reissue of one of Kurt Cobain’s guitars that I did a booklet for. All these projects last year totally added up, but unfortunately, there’s no big hoopla around a 21^st anniversary.

I’m gonna try and sort of ramp up the fine-art print sales aspect of that work with my archives. I know a lot of photographers, such as Mick Rock and whatnot, are quite invested in that. And try and get some new work, and of course, having a new baby, that will take up a lot of time.

When are you due?

What’s that? Oh, uh…May 3^rd.

May 3^rd? All right. Wow!

Yeah. Leica will be her name.

Leica?

Leica, as in the camera. Yeah.

Great Rock Photographers: The Charles Peterson Interview (Pt. I)

                  

The 19th century French novelist Emile Zola said, "In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it."

In the mid-80s when grunge was percolating in the Pacific Northwest, a recent graduate of the University of Washington was "killing time" by documenting Seattle's local music scene with his camera. For Charles Peterson, his role as chronicler of the grunge movement has been as important as the music itself. By recording and preserving such an influential period in music history, Peterson has given us the opportunity to "see something" and perhaps wax nostalgic over a bygone era.

In the third installment of our "Great Rock Photographer" series, Charles Peterson chats about Kurt Cobain, being pigeonholed as a rock photographer, why he no longer wants to photograph "grimy dudes," Usher's professionalism, his fascination with B-Boy culture, and his recurring dream of Eddie Vedder.

Riffraf's conversation with Charles is in two-parts. Below is part one. Check back tomorrow (4/12) for part two.

How did you start taking pictures of the grunge scene?

I was just kind of there from the beginning. Mark Arm from Mudhoney was my college roommate in 1983. At that time Green River started up. I was just hanging out with Kim Thayil pre-Soundgarden. We all went to college together. I was introduced to Bruce Pavitt. We were all just kind of buddies. It was a very sort of organic process that happened with us. It wasn’t like I parachuted into the scene to try and take advantage of it or something. It just happened to be that it was what we were all doing to kill time. I couldn’t play an instrument to save my life, and I was pretty good with a camera so that became my role in it.

Is it more challenging to take pictures of friends than people you don’t know?

I think so, to a degree. I think back then it was possibly a little to my detriment because it was too easy to just hang out. You know? And you sort of take it for granted. Especially when you’re so young. It’s like you don’t realize the importance of what you’re doing. It’s just something you’re doing. Knowing what I know now, the way I’ve matured as a photographer...yes I do wish I can turn the clock back sometimes and sort of redo some things (laughs).

I read somewhere that when you were labeled a rock photographer you felt pigeonholed. Was it hard to break free from that label?

Yeah, it was. There were some people who believed in me like Meg Handler at the Village Voice. She assigned me to shoot writers and artists and all this non-music stuff which was really great and refreshing. Within the music publishing industry was where I had the worst time as far as being pigeonholed. I’ll tell you a story.

Spin Magazine approached me about doing a photo of John Ponemon and Bruce Pavitt of Sub Pop. I think it was the tenth anniversary of the label or something. I met with the photo editor at Spin and she was looking at my portfolio, and I had a few shots in there of your basic portraits against white backdrops. She said something like, “We’re not doing these white backdrop things anymore.” Okay. Whatever. I’ve got a lot of other stuff in there.

I wanted to go pose them in the woods – John with a laptop and Bruce with a chainsaw. I didn’t hear back from them. Then it turns out they flew in a photographer from San Francisco and what do they do? They pose John and Bruce against a white background (laughter). So it’s kind of like “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

I also heard somebody would mention me for a job and they’re like, “If we wanted a blurry black and white photo of the band jumping into the drum kit then we’d hire him.” So I got really pigeonholed like I can just shoot this one sort of thing. Which is not true at all.

Do you prefer to shoot musicians?

Well, actually I really dislike shooting music now. Though it really depends. I enjoy shooting music that is sort of outside of what people consider to think what I’d like to shoot. Shooting somebody like Usher is really great. 

Weirdly enough one of my favorite photo shoots on [my website] is Usher. This was a number of years ago; I got the job from Vibe to photograph him. I had never heard of him before. Even up until the moment I was in the same room as him, I had no idea who this guy was (laughter). That’s not a rarity with me.

Last week I was photographing Cobra Starship who was playing at Bing. And they were great. I had never heard of them and they started playing and I was like, “Oh, I recognize that song.” But anyway Usher…the job for Vibe was photographing the show and seeing whatever I can get backstage, documentary style, which is what I do best. And he was such a consummate professional. He let me just hang out for like two and a half hours before the show. At one point it was just me and him backstage together. He’s trying on different clothes and stuff, so I was a fly on the wall and the show was not my cup of tea, but I was allowed such access that I got some really, really great shots. Probably some of the better stuff I’ve ever done in my career. It’s all about access. It’s all about what the artists will give you.

On my site there’s a picture of Erykah Badu. (Another musician I had never heard of before she went on stage.) Musically, it’s not really my cup of tea per se, but it’s just like the elegance and the stage show...it gives you a lot more to work with than just four grimy dudes who’ve been living in a van for six months, making fart jokes. I kind of need more than that right now.

I live in the heart of Hipsterville, so I know what you mean.

You know what I mean. I call it Beard Rock.

Beard Rock (laughter). Do your subjects come in with ideas? Has anybody ever come in with an idea that you went with?

Sometimes. I usually discourage that. Record labels are always like, “I’ll send you a copy of the pre-release of the cd and all this press material and stuff.” I’m not a real conceptual photographer. I’m not like Annie Leibovitz or something, so I just kind of take them as they are. I’d much rather just put ‘em anywhere and work with the frame and just keep it natural, loose.

I’m really struck by the diversity of your photographs. I love the James Murphy…the LCD Soundsystem shots. They just pop. I was wondering if you have a favorite.

It’s funny. I really like those shots of James Murphy, and I got to meet him in person about a week and a half ago down at the Bing Bar at Sundance Film festival. I spent a week documenting the whole thing. It’s the second year in a row that I’ve been documenting it. He’s got a new documentary coming out so he dj’d his own private party. It’s a really great way to avoid talking to guests. Spinning records. It was fun to photograph him again. It was really just portraits and him at the turntable. People consider me just for my grunge work.

Who were some of your favorites to shoot at Sundance?

Ice-T was pretty cool. And Spike Lee. Rebecca Hall’s still a major crush. And let’s see, last year there was—I’m trying to think who else I got…Oh, last year there was the whole set of this movie Margin Call, which was like, Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, and Simon Baker, and all these dudes---I’ll send you a link so that you can see some of that stuff.

Yeah, that would be cool. Will any of these photos make their way into a book? Do you have plans for a new book?

I do have plans for another book; it’s been in the works. Oh yeah, Florence & The Machine. Yet another band I’d never heard of before, but I kinda looked them up. I was like, "oh who knows, this could be really, really stupid," and it was actually really amazing…and really great to photograph. But yeah, I’d like to—oh! Harry Belafonte. He was fun to photograph too. Yeah, the working title is Negative Creeps.

Negative Creeps?

"Creeps," yeah, as in the Nirvana song but plural. My first intention was to do a portrait book, but I’ve got all this great grunge stuff in the can that’s never been seen, and ostensibly it’s a book of faces. It’s like kinda taking the portrait idea and just sort of pushing the envelope with it.

And then being a little more cross-genre, like throwing in some pictures of Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson or whoever kind of falls under that moniker of the outsider or the negative creep.

I don’t know if Usher falls under that moniker.

Usher? Yeah, yeah, I don’t think so. Yeah (laughs). Put a live picture of Usher next to a live picture of the Butthole Surfers or something.

                     

How did the book Cypher come about?

I’ve always been fascinated with B-Boy culture and hip-hop. I bought the Grandmaster Flash 12 inches practically when they first came out, back in like ’82 and ’83. So, that kinda scene has always been on my radar.

After a show, when we end up at my place, it’s like, “Alright, fuck you people, we’re listening to Public Enemy.” In 2001, I’d been meaning to go out to this B-Boy night club forever, and finally I grabbed my Menina 6 - it’s a camera that you would use for portraiture, or studio, or landscape or something. I just thought, “push the envelope here,” and shot a bunch of rolls of film and got ‘em back, and it was like some of the best stuff I’d shot in years.

The whole scene was super refreshing. It was just people doing their thing, and there’s no industry, no bullshit attitudes, and you pay your five bucks cover and get in and just shoot all you want. The energy was fantastic. Just reminded me of the old days, in a way, of the rock scene. I just started going out to clubs and shooting locally, and then ended up going to some big events in New York and L.A. and talked to my publisher, Powerhouse, showed them some work and they got really interested and spent a year or more, editing and kind of pulling it all together. And yeah, did a book. Sales-wise, did nothing (laughs), did pretty poorly. But I was proud of the work and I mean it’s really, really strong. Doing a photo book without somebody famous in it, is just a really tough sell.

What makes for a successful shoot?

For me it’s capturing those off-moments. It’s the unposed sort of candid moments. It’s pretty easy to just go out there with a long lens and take the close-up money shot of the singer the other eight photographers that are with you are doing as well. Trying to get the shit that uses the space and captures a moment that’s kind of unique speaks not only to the music but to photography as well. I prefer my images to be more iconic in a sense. And so to be able to capture that one sort of iconic photograph is important. And it’s impossible to do that in the first three songs. I actually won’t even shoot a show these days unless I’m allowed full access to it.

How would you describe your style?

I guess the best description is reportage. It’s a French term for it, but fine art documentary is (I think) how that translates. That’s definitely the type of photographers that have inspired me through the years, that whole Magnum School of Photography.

   
What do you think are your most iconic photographs?

Well, I mean it’s obviously of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. In particular, there’s the one photograph of him where he’s got his legs up in the air. You don’t see his face really; he’s still playing the guitar. It’s kind of at a diagonal in the frame. He’s doing a somersault essentially, but it just sort of looks like he’s floating above the stage upside-down.

Just like Mick Rock said, that’s one of those shots that just happened in the blink of an eye. Especially back then when you were shooting film you didn’t know whether you got it or not, or anything, until a day or two later. So, you just kinda took it and maybe filed it to the back of your mind that this is something that happened but just kept on shooting.

The other obviously iconic image is of him [Kurt] sprawled on the drum kit at Raji’s. That’s the middle part of a whole Motor Sports Series of him launching himself, falling into it, and then getting back up off the drum kit and walking out of the frame.

A couple years back, the Seattle Art Museum did a show called Kurt, which is artwork inspired by Kurt Cobain or about, and they commissioned me to blow up that whole Drum Kit Series to like 44 x 66 inch prints, each one, and then they framed it, put it on a wall.

A lot of people thought it was the best part of the show, and it looked really, really great, so I donated it to the museum.

Did I see that photograph in the Who Shot Rock and Roll exhibit?

I don’t know if it was in that one. The one of him upside-down (I think) was in the table of contents and then they ran the MFest crowd shot in the book, and that was actually used as a poster for that show at the Brooklyn Museum. Did you see the book Taking Aim from the EMP?

I don’t think I have.

Yeah, that was a show that was at the Experience Music Project Museum. It was curated by Graham Nash and he included the photo of Kurt Cobain sprawled on the drum kit. And that was a really fun experience ‘cause I got to meet all these famous old-school photographers - Henry Diltz and Joel Bernstein and Jim Marshall. It was like a month before he passed away, so I got to meet him and talk a little bit. So yeah, that was a really, really great experience.

  

Great Rock Photographers: The Rob Shanahan Interview (Pt. II)

  

Does Ringo come in with ideas?

Yeah, he does. He loves photography. He loves art. In fact, we both have a mutual favorite painter. Rembrandt. We love Rembrandt and the whole lighting thing. We love to discuss photography. When he wanted to get a new camera, he asked me about ideas and what kind of camera he should get. So of course when we are working on a new record cover or whatever it may be, we throw ideas back and forth, and I love his idea of art. When we did the Y Not cover - him on white background - we wanted to capture something clean and easy and white and not all busy and colorful. I love that cover. His new record is another beautiful cover photo. I love it. The cool shots are the inside ones. So getting back to your question, it’s very collaborative working with Ringo. He has a vision.

I forgot that Ringo has an interest in photography.

If you look back at all the old Beatles photos, there’s a period where they all had a camera around their neck. Wherever they traveled. They were all really into photography, and I remember reading somewhere that Nikon had given them all cameras and gear. So there’s a bunch of old photos of those guys walking around with Nikon F-bodies on their neck. It’s pretty cool. And I’m sure that they all have incredible libraries of photos from those years. Can you imagine?

Does Ringo ever position you? How does it work? Will he ever go that far?

Actually, no. He has never really said, “Why don’t you shoot from over there” or “I think it would be better if you do this.” He knows that I know which angles and what position to be in to get a better angle for him. So no, he doesn’t really direct me that much. We come up with ideas or maybe a concept, but once we get down to actually shooting that concept he doesn’t direct me.

The photo of Ringo and Paul is a beauty.

Thanks. Yeah, that was a pretty special time. I’m really glad and lucky that I have that. You know whenever Paul and Ringo get together it’s pretty fun thinking about there’s half of The Beatles right there. The rhythm section of The Beatles. And for me to be there with them to capture whenever they’re together is really great. I have a really amazing collection of photos of the two of them together. I only have a couple in the book, but I have enough to fill a book in itself. Some day.

Do you prefer a candid shot?

Uhm, I like them both. I like posed. I like candid. I like studio. I like live. I like all kinds. I like the candid stuff, but would I say I like it better? Maybe.

The Eddie Van Halen shot is a candid shot but it looks posed.

It looks like it’s posed yet it’s live. That’s a fun story. I’m a huge Van Halen fan. I graduated high school in 1984. I’m a kid from the 80’s, and I like the big rock stuff, so of course I’m a big Van Halen fan. Getting the call to shoot Van Halen was so exciting. It was up in Boise, Idaho, of all places, which is a great place to go to a rock show. Once you get out of L.A. or New York or bigger cities you get out in the heartland of America and man these fans are just incredibly rabid and just diehard fans. The band is a little looser and the security is not as tight. It’s easier to work with those parameters.

I get to the venue and I was early, met the crew and security gets me in. We get all situated and then the band shows up and meeting Alex was just incredible. We did some photos at the drum kit. He introduced me to everyone else. Michael is such a sweetheart. I’m really dear friends with Michael Anthony to this day. We still work and talk all the time. That’s a whole other story. I’m walking around during sound check, getting all these interesting angles and then after sound check Alex said, “Hey, we talked and we want you to just go wherever you want during the show. Onstage. Side stage. Wherever you want. Whatever you want to do.” And I’m looking out going, “Wow.” So then Alex suggested, “After the fourth song, I do the drum solo. I want a shot right in front of the drum riser. After the solo I stand and do this stick thing.” I’m freaking out thinking, “Really? Onstage with Van Halen? This is gonna be great.” I make my way around the stage and then that happened right after the drum solo. There’s Eddie. He turns to salute brother Al and it happened within a split second. You shoot and hope for the best. Hope the exposure is good and everything’s there.

It’s a great shot, and your timing is perfect.

Thank you. Last week at NAMM in Anaheim, I was at SKB, the great American case company - they’re a really good friend and client - and they asked if I wanted to do an autograph signing there on Saturday afternoon, so I was there and who swings by the booth but Wolfgang Van Halen. I showed him the picture of his dad in the book. It was very fun.

How did you select the images for Volume One?

I ‘d go and pick out my favorites, things that I wanted to share. I work closely with a couple of friends who are in the industry who helped me edit it down, and we decided what went in and what didn’t. The whole idea about Volume One - coming up with that title and the cover concept - that was more difficult than I expected. I just thought that you throw a picture on the cover and you come up with a catchy name, but there was a lot of thought that went into that. My first three cover designs and titles were rejected. A friend of mine, Scott Donnell (Marketing Director from Drum Workshop) - I’ve worked with him a long time and I really respect his marketing skills - I would bounce ideas and cover ideas off him, and he’s such a good friend that he was able to tell me, “That sucks. Dude, horrible. Go back to the drawing board.” And you need that. You can’t have everyone telling you how great everything is, and he was really good about giving me honest opinions. After the third or fourth try with the cover I said, “Fuck it. I’m going with Volume One. That’s it." Kind of like Led Zeppelin One. He said, “Take a picture of a volume knob on one and that’s your cover.” And that’s what we did. And I’m glad. I like it. Everyone likes it. And then of course getting the foreword by Ringo was gold. I asked Ringo because who else would I want to do the foreword for my book? You just don’t go asking him for stuff like that. It took some courage. I didn’t think he would. That was a very joyous day when I got that foreword from Ringo.

Why wouldn’t you expect him to write the foreword?

I’m sure he gets asked to do all sorts of things all the time. I try not to cross that line with artists, but I had to ask because I really wanted Ringo to write my foreword. About two weeks before my publishing deadline, I got it. He sent it in an email, and I was floored. I was starting to sweat bullets because like I said I had two weeks left before all my artwork had to be completed and turned in to the publisher, and I really didn’t have a plan B because I just knew I had to have that foreword by Ringo, so it finally came in an email one morning. My first thought was that it was just another email from Ringo, talking about something we had been working on or were going to be working on. But it was the foreword. I couldn’t believe it. I started jumping up and down, running around the house. It was crazy. My wife can tell you a better story. It was very exciting. It was a good thing.

                                    

Have you ever played Ringo’s drums?

Yeah, I played them once at rehearsal in Niagara Falls. When he’s up front singing, his drums are empty, so I just jumped up on his kit one day and played “With a Little Help From My Friends.” On that tour that was the last song of the show, and they played “Give Peace a Chance” as a kind of encore, but I played those two numbers and Ringo had commented, “Hey that sounded good.” So I asked him if I could do it on the actual tour in Minneapolis in my hometown and he said "yes," so I got up and played in Minneapolis at Prior Lake Casino with about fifty of my old high school buddies and my parents and family. It was really a lot of fun. Even my high school band director was there. He got to see me play with Ringo and Billy Squier and the band – Edgar Winter – it was really a lot of fun for me. I had a good time.

I’m looking forward to your presentation at Beatlefest.

Yeah, that is going to be dynamite. I know that I have a bunch of things that nobody has ever seen because I’ve never done anything with them other than photograph them and put them in my hard drives. So I’ll go through like a day’s photo shoot with Ringo or something with Paul. Whenever I shoot them together there’s a lot of photos that never get released. I’ll pick a half dozen of the good ones and everything else kind of sits in my hard drives, but this will be a good time to get them out. They’re really great to have for historical reasons.

The Beatlefest folks love anything that’s rare, so they’ll totally eat it up.

Yeah, these are going to be unbelievably rare.

Some Beatles’ fans are also Stones’ fans, so the photograph of Charlie Watts and Ringo might be a good one to show as well.

Oh, sure. And that’s such a great story. It was one of the most fun photo shoot days I’ve ever had. Getting Charlie and Ringo together with Jim Keltner was really incredible. I knew The Stones were coming to town, so I called Ringo to see if he’d be into doing a photo shoot with Charlie, and he loved it. So I called Jim Keltner – I didn’t have Charlie’s number at the time. I have it now. I called Jim and suggested, to get these guys together, so we made it happen. We spent the afternoon at Ringo’s house, and the collection of photos from that day are incredible. Just really amazing, and I have two of them in the book. I believe. Or maybe one. I can’t remember.

I think there’s one. One with Ringo and Charlie and it looks like Jim Keltner's image in the mirror in the background. Is that Jim Keltner?

Yeah, that’s the one. Yeah, I only have that picture from that day in the book, but I have so many other great ones, and what I did with the photos is make a book of the collection of that day, but I only made five copies and they’re really small books; they’re 8x8, a little bigger than a cd. They’re hard cover. Just really beautiful books. I sent one to Ringo, one to Charlie and one to Jim, and I kept two. Ringo and Jim called me right away: “Wow, Rob. Great. I’m really glad we did it. It was so much fun.” But it took Charlie about two months to get back to me. He may have been on the road or whatever, but he called me on my cell phone. It was one of those calls I’ll always remember. He said, (in a terrible English accent) “Hello, Rob this is Charlie from The Stones. I got the book. It was great. I’m so glad that you did that.” I was floored. It was really exciting to get that call from Charlie Watts. Lovely.

Hey Rob, how did you get started in photography?

Well, when I was a kid my mom bought my father a Pentax ME for Christmas one year. I was probably twelve. I’d already been drumming for a couple of years at that point. My dad never really figured out how to use it. The camera sat in a bag in the cabinet, so I started playing around with it, and it just felt so good in my hands. I wanted to learn how to use it, so I read the book, learned all about f-stops, shutter speeds and different feels and all that great stuff and I just dived into it. I just really loved photography and started taking pictures around my neighborhood. Just fell in love with it. When I started college in Mankato in Southern Minnesota, I got into it even more.

I found a local camera store that had a dark room that you can go and rent by the hour and print and develop film, so I just really got into it. My roommate at the time, Jim, who was an Aviation Management major - had this little Cessna 172 four seat airplane that he’d be flying 3 or 4 times a week, logging out hours, and I would go with him with my camera gear and take arial pictures of farms and buildings. I would make prints and sell them. I realized that I could make a living doing photography and when I got out of college I bought a van from my high school computer teacher, packed it up with my drum kit and my camera gear, and pointed towards California. And away I went. I thought, “All right, I’m gonna make a living one way or the other, either drumming or taking pictures." I just kept on doing both. And here I am, talking to you.

Great Rock Photographers: The Rob Shanahan Interview (Pt. I)

  

When Rob Shanahan graduated from college, he packed his drums and camera equipment into his van and pointed it towards California, determined to make a living as either a drummer or photographer. Today, he makes a living as both.

Rob is the drummer for the incredible Rolling Stones' tribute band Hollywood Stones, and has been photographing musicians for more than a decade, among them Van Halen, Motley Crue, Elton John, Christina Aguilera and Ringo Starr (as his personal photographer).

Mr. Shanahan's new book Volume 1: Through the Lens of Music Photographer Rob Shanahan features photographs of Keith Richards, Dave Grohl, Sting, Paul McCartney, Charlie Watts, and of course Ringo Starr, who also wrote the foreword. 

In the second installment of our "Great Rock Photographer" series, Rob Shanahan chats about Justin Beiber, sweaty athletes, Rembrandt, The Rolling Stones, drumming, The Beatles, and his "mate," Ringo.

Riffraf caught up with Rob for a two-part interview. Below is part one. Check back tomorrow for part two.

How do you get your pictures to pop the way that they do? They’re so vibrant. They’re 3D.

Oh, that’s a nice question. I don’t know. People ask me, ”Your photos look so much different from everyone else’s. How do you do it?” I don’t have an answer. I just shoot from the heart. I’m a musician and I love musicians. I love working with guys I’ve been listening to my whole life and respect. I want to make them as comfortable as possible at the photo shoot. And make them look as good as possible. I seem to have a knack for getting people to come out of their shell. And I like to capture that moment. Ringo and Paul and Keith Richards...I get all these guys to do things that they may not normally do for other photographers. I like to see the inside of people, not some manufactured image that some artists like to put out there. You know what I mean?

Yeah, definitely. Being a drummer, you must have good timing. That must translate into your photography.

I’ve heard that. I know when and how and what to do with drummers. Maybe that’s it. My whole music photography career started with shooting drummers. Before I was shooting music, I was shooting sports. That was where I really learned my timing. I was a contract photographer for the NFL for ten years. But I’m a musician. My heart’s with music, so I just decided to really start focusing on shooting musicians. That’s when it really started for me. When I started shooting drummers, I realized that’s what I should be doing. Who wants to shoot sweaty athletes when you could shoot great musicians?

The photograph that you took of Keith Richards - the blurry image - you really captured him in the mood, inside himself. As a drummer you’re always looking at facial expressions for musical cues. Is that what you were doing when you snapped that shot?

For the Keith shot, I wanted to get the essence of Keith doing what he does and not just a standing pose with his guitar, looking at the camera. Blah, blah, blah. I wanted you to hear a song. People told me that when they look at the photo they can hear “Tumbling Dice” or “Honky Tonk” or something. You know what I mean?

                        
Have you read Keith’s book, Life?

Yeah, of course. I ended up reading it twice. It’s a great book. I read it on the road, while I was travelling. It’s one of those that you can’t put down. It’s a great story. It’s a great book.

I was struck by what Keith wrote about Charlie - how much he admires Charlie’s playing. Keith said that a lot of drummers know how to rock, but Charlie knows how to roll. 

That’s right. Yeah, that’s a magical combination there: Keith and Charlie. I mean, getting into Charlie’s drumming as deep as I’ve had to in my Stones' tribute band made me realize how great a drummer Charlie is. Not for what he plays, but for what he doesn’t play. All the cool spacings. His groove is incredible. When I first started playing with Hollywood Stones, and started studying Charlie’s drumming, I thought, "that’s easy he’s such an elementary drummer." But once I started studying his groove and what he does, I realized how thoughtful his drum tracks are and how much of a part of the Stones’ catalogue they really are.

What’s your favorite Stones’ album?

Exile on Main Street.

Yeah, I like the reissue as well.

Yeah, the reissue is incredible. Although I just got the Some Girls reissue for Christmas from my guitar player, and I’m enjoying the hell out of that too. It’s a great record.

Definitely. It’s a real New York record too.

Yeah, you’re right. You’re in New York. Are you in Manhattan?

I’m in Brooklyn.

Oh, you’re in Brooklyn? I love Brooklyn. I would move to the Red Hook district in a moment if I could. There are some great studios there. Ringo’s publicist is there. I go there often. There’s a studio in Queens that I rent whenever I get out to the city. I love shooting in the city, but in Queens, from the rooftop of this studio I use there, you get this great Manhattan skyline in the background. It’s incredible. It’s a little jewel of a studio, and I’m not going to tell you where it’s at because if I tell you you’re going to tell everyone, and I’ll never be able to get in there because he’s gonna raise his rents. I’m not going to tell you where it is.

Mum’s the word. Don’t tell me. Believe me, I don’t want to get on your bad side like Justin Bieber.

Yeah, the whole Justin Bieber thing. Can you believe it?

What was his excuse for showing up three hours late for the photo shoot?

I never got one, and I didn’t care. That whole Justin Bieber thing exploded for no reason at all. It’s really a non-issue, and I’m glad you asked because I want to clear some air. I was doing an interview in Minneapolis and there is a certain entertainment writer there. I won’t mention any names, but she likes to kind of work some kind of weird angle into every story. I’m not sure why, but she had asked me, “Who’s your favorite subject to shoot? Who’s your least favorite? Can you tell me any stories about any artist?” The whole bit. I casually mentioned that Justin Bieber was super late for a photo shoot that we had booked, and I mean it was nothing more than him being late and it could have been for a number of reasons. I never found out why. This writer had asked, “Well he’s not in your book. Is that why you excluded him from your book?” It wasn’t the reason. The reason was my editor edited him out because he didn’t feel like he fit in with all my other rock photos for whatever reason. Maybe we wanted to keep him for Volume Two. It wasn’t because he was late for the photo shoot. Anyway the reporter ran with that story. (In newscaster’s voice) “Justin Bieber is late for the photo shoot so rock photographer excludes him from the book.” Anyway that story got picked up from like ten different papers. It was kind of crazy. I’m sure you saw.

Yeah. Yeah. It was on the "Bieber Zone," his fan site.

Yeah, oh well. Sorry, Justin. Love you, dude.

Well, Keith Richards or Justin Bieber? I think I'd go with the Keith Richards’ photo over a “Justin Bieber” any day. The photos of Sarah McLachlan are really spectacular.

Thank you.

 

She looks so natural.

She’s a beauty. I love Sarah. Our photo shoot was so much fun and we connected immediately. I had so many photos to choose from. I couldn’t decide, but I just like the one I picked. The double spread. She just looks amazing in that photo. She loved it.

Did you connect with Sheila E in the same way?

I’m glad you brought her up. I have a long standing working relationship with Sheila. She was one of the first big drummers that I photographed for Paiste Cymbals. We hit it off immediately. I always enjoyed working with Sheila, and she was the reason why I’m now Ringo Starr’s personal photographer. She introduced me to Ringo back on the 2005 All-Star tour. I went out on a photo shoot with Sheila at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles when she was on the All-Star tour, and I was in her dressing room before the show, and Ringo walks in and I’m freaking out. There’s Ringo. She introduced me. After the show his publicist, Elizabeth, asked me if I wanted to do a couple of dates for Ringo, so of course you say ‘yes.’ And that next night he had a show in San Diego at Humphreys, so I go down there and see Ringo again and off to work we went. It was really fun. Of course I started talking about drums. He realized that I’m a drummer, and we’re both left handed and we play right-handed drum kits. So it was a great ice-breaker and we’ve been mates ever since. 

Great Rock Photographers: The Mick Rock Interview (Pt. II)

                                  

In your photographs of Syd Barrett, you can see an accursed poet. He had a reputation of being difficult. Was he?

No, quite the opposite. Syd and me were very comfortable together. I think that was why I got the pictures I got. I took acid with him once, just one time. And whenever I say it to people they think oh, my God, that must have been weird. But it wasn't.

It was actually quite relaxed and very playful. We had a lot of fun and we played records and looked at Robert Crumb comics and played like a kind of Chinese checkers game. I still remember certain things about it and it was entirely playful. I did have some pretty bizarre experiences with certain people under the influence of acid but not with Syd.

It was more with Syd about the pressures. I did actually the last interview with him, and that's where that phrase, "a very irregular head," comes from and "I'm full of dust and guitars." That was from the very last public interview he ever did, not long after I finished at Cambridge in 1971. 

That's when I did the very last pictures of him in the garden of his mother's house and down in the basement where he had a pad.

So I got on with Syd. I often have to remind myself and remind people when I'm talking about those early years, how young we all were. Everyone was in their early 20s. My daughter's 21 now, and I look back and think of all the craziness I was up to at 21, including taking photos of Syd. 

And I think it was a very accelerated kind of time, not just for me, but for the people I hung around with. It was a time when there was still something called the 'underground' where all this creativity happened...not in the political sense because I had little interest in it and still don't. I've never voted in my life. I despise all politicians.

Maybe Winston Churchill you can take your hat off to, but even he had a checkered early career. It was only his facing down of Hitler that transformed him into this very substantial person. He's a fascinating man. But in general, politicians are undoubtedly a lower form of human life. They're in the business of lying and manipulation. 

And, if you get someone who comes along who's not so bad, like Obama, even he's forced into all kinds of compromises by the circumstances. I'm sure he's got a fairly pure heart, but he's stuck with the fact that he's black and with racism that's still rife in this country, and the powers that be that really control what happens...but that's a whole other tale. 

At the time of the Madcap Laughs, do you think Syd was relieved from the pressures of Pink Floyd?

I think he was relieved from having to play the same songs every night. In the same way. He was really more like a jazz musician in many ways. He thought like a painter. Like an abstract painter. That's really what he was for the rest of his life. And what he had been originally since a young age. 

A book of his art came out last year. There aren’t many of his actual physical paintings left - but the interesting thing was that he would photograph his paintings and then destroy them. 

In recent years I reconnected with a girlfriend of Syd's, Jenny Spires. And she has some of his original paintings, as well as a collection of Syd's love letters to her. She's referred to as 'Jennifer Gentle' in the early Floyd track 'Lucifer Sam'

I want to ask you one more question about Syd.

Syd never goes away. It's amazing. My first conversations with David Bowie were about Syd Barrett. 

             

What did you guys talk about?

We talked about Syd, and he had recently met Lou and Iggy. You've got to remember Lou and Iggy were not that well known at that moment in time. They both had a certain underground following, but that was before Transformer and Raw Power, and in either case had they been able to sell any records or get radio airplay.

I remember talking about Syd and Iggy and Lou Reed in first my conversations with David Bowie. I think that's why we got on. We had certain tastes in common and you have to remember again, in 1972, those tastes were maybe slightly more esoteric than they are today. 

I know Bowie used to go to the Floyd shows, the underground shows at the UFO Club.

It was to see Syd. It was Syd that really obsessed him, not particularly Pink Floyd. And the other thing about Syd was he sang like an Englishman. David sort of almost invented singing like an Englishman, but the precursor was Syd Barrett. Even in the case of The Beatles you could hear Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers and occasionally Little Richard or something. And the Stones were totally American influenced of course.

"Arnold Layne was a strange fellow." That's a totally British thing. David also sang with this English intonation which certainly influenced just about all significant succeeding British rock and rollers. 

And along comes Bryan Ferry as well. He was another of the British school. And a great singer/songwriter called Steve Harley who had a band called Cockney Rebel who, certainly in Europe in the 70s, was very significant. 

I suppose that Syd probably was influenced by Ray Davies with some of the English-isms.

Maybe. But I don't recall Syd being particularly interested in The Kinks. Ray [Davies] didn't early on sound that English. Think of "You Really Got Me." But by the time he got to "Lola," yes. 

Besides the obvious like Dylan and the Stones and The Beatles, which we all loved, Syd was interested in jazz. That's what he often played. Coltrane and Mingus. In a way he thought more like a jazz musician. It was always about improvisation and I think that was the thing with Floyd. He didn't want to go out and play the same music every night. He wanted to just do whatever he felt like. 

He was about the blues as well, but he mixed up all these influences and it became Pink Floyd which didn't sound like anything you'd ever heard before and it was certainly the result of his LSD experiments. Although, at that time, I don't think the rest of the band had taken acid, not at the beginning. 

Syd was certainly the visionary as Dave and Roger constantly give him credit. They've been very good about showing their respect for his innovations. 

You can't get away from Syd. In Tom Stoppard's play Rock n Roll, the Syd character looms large although he's not a character in the play itself.

Tom Stoppard, the renowned playwright, wrote the foreword to my book Exposed, and he talks about Syd and how that formed the connection between him and me.

And, of course, the afterword's by a gentleman called Andrew Loog Oldham who I got to know in New York in the late 70s. He was the original manager and producer and publicist of the Rolling Stones. A genius, no doubt.

For that book I wanted to get a kind of slightly different flavor rather than going to somebody obvious and getting them to write a foreword because I've done collaborations with Queen and with Debbie [Harry] and with David and Iggy and even with Rocky Horror. 

I have a great Rocky Horror book out in Germany for which Richard O'Brien, who wrote the musical and plays RiffRaff in the film, wrote the foreword for. It's in both German and English although it is of course primarily a photobook.

And now I finally got around to doing a book with Lou Reed. 

                            

I'm glad Lou agreed to do that with you. 

Well, I think it's about timing. It's 40 years since Transformer. I've been often approached about doing it, but it was never going to happen without Lou's full participation. I always involve the subjects of my books. And I have a deep and abiding respect for Lou both as a person and an artist, and I want him to be totally happy about the end result. I'm just scanning pictures and sending them over to him and he's picking out what he likes. We'll both write a foreword for the book and we'll co-sign. It'll be a beautiful signed and numbered and slipcased limited edition tome, to be published by Genesis Publications, with whom I did my collaborations with Bowie and Queen. And Syd, who co-signed 320 copies of our book Psychedelic Renegades, his only public gesture in the last 35 years of his life. The co-signed copies are now selling for several thousand dollars, if you can find them....

Of course, Lou has an interesting, somewhat combative public reputation in his maturity, but he shows one side to journalists, and that's only a little bit of Lou Reed. The full man is much more interesting and complex. And has been very kind to a number of people I know.

I understand that you have a good friendship with David and had one with Syd, but were you ever in awe of a subject?

I think I was a little in awe of all of them: Syd, David, Lou Reed. Lou, especially back in those days, was such a groundbreaker. We were all a bit in awe of Lou Reed, certainly David was too.

And Freddie, of course, an awesome talent. And Iggy Pop. Absolutely. He was a primal force, the like of which has never been equalled in rock n roll. When punk rock came along in full force a few years later, it was kind of amateur time compared to Iggy. It was like...this is punk? 

I still think of Iggy in 1972, when I shot the Raw Power photos. Now, that was punk. And he's still the one true punk out there. All the rest have drifted away. A great artist. 

Great Rock Photographers: The Mick Rock Interview (Pt. I)

                                  

Mick Rock's early photographs (1972-1979) of David Bowie, Syd Barrett, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Queen, Johnny Rotten and Debbie Harry are so iconic that they have become deeply ingrained in our social consciousness.

Mr. Rock is known as "The Man Who Shot the Seventies," but he didn't stop working when David Bowie took off his Ziggy Stardust costume. In fact, the photographer is so busy these days that he can "hardly keep up with his own brain."

In our "Great Rock Photographer" series, the inaugural photographer, the legendary Mick Rock, chats about David Bowie, Lou Reed, Syd Barrett, whacked-out poets, LSD, his health scare, yoga, New York, cats and oh yeah, photography.

Riffraf caught up with Mr. Rock for a two-part interview. Below is part one. Check back tomorrow for part two.

Why do you think you're drawn to musicians?

I think some cute answer I gave a few years ago to Spin Magazine was for my sins in a former life, I've been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time with musicians in this life. Of course, I love them.

I don't think there's anything logical. I think it was more about timing, inclination, my name, the way I look. I think all these things combined, plus certainly in my youth - I studied languages and literature at Cambridge, so I tended to see a lot of the early characters that I worked with as kind of modern equivalents of Baudelaire and Coleridge and all these crazy drug-sodden poets.

And that was really the way I saw them, and I related to them and that somehow or another, while I was still a student, some local band gave me 5 quid to take some pictures of them. And I'd only been using a camera for about three or four months, but I think that synchronized in my brain, well you mean you can actually get paid for doing something like this? And back then, 5 quid was worth something. 

I don't know if you've seen my latest book, Exposed. I say right at the beginning of my introduction that 'photography happened to me. It idly drifted into my life, set up shop and took over.' It wasn't particularly what I had in mind. I think maybe I would have liked to have been a lyric writer or something of that nature, something a bit more of a literary persuasion. 

And, in fact, in the early days, I used to do interviews and provide photographs myself because you could get a double whammy that way. You get paid for the text and for the photos. And the other thing, of course, was that I got to know Syd Barrett and that was probably an inspiration; besides his unbelievable talent, he looked like a poet of another era.

Like Rimbaud.

Exactly, yes. So I think all these things conspired. Of course, I went out my way to do certain things that interested me, but somehow it was like an energy all of its own. And obviously I had an interest in the music. I played rock music all the time from an early age and, of course, I took LSD and that probably helped too. It's over 40 years since I've touched that, but I think that it somehow taught me how to 'see.'

It did have a profound influence on a number of people I've known and read about. Steve Jobs would talk about how it influenced his vision. I think it also ruined the lives of a lot of other people. In my case, it opened up my third eye. It definitely influenced the direction of my life.

You've also shot actors and models.

Not really many actors, but certainly I've shot quite a few models in my time, that's for sure. But I somehow will always be a rock and roll photographer. Even though I do a lot of photo art. In fact, I'm in the middle of preparing for my first exhibition here in New York at the CATM Gallery in Chelsea towards the end of March. They want to call it: The Legends Collection and there will be Bob Marley and Bowie and Iggy and Mick Jagger and Freddie, Queen. Certainly Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, Iggy, Debbie Harry, Kate Moss because she's about as rock and roll as anybody out there. And also the master of modern art, Andy Warhol. All based on my own photos. Anyway, I'm excited about that.  

And I've also just completed the first music video that I've done in a long time for a very hot young guitar player called Andrew Watt. And then I'm working on my Lou Reed book with Lou for a company called Genesis for whom I've done books for Bowie and Queen and one on Syd Barrett that he cosigned a number of copies of. And there's an Iggy limited edition book in the works that will cover more than just my Raw Power stuff.

I think it's all this kundalini yoga and chanting that I do every day. There's so much going on at the moment, I can hardly keep up with my own brain. Somehow I'm busier than ever. 

And then there's a documentary about me kicking into gear. It's directed by a guy called Barney Clay who's a music video director (you can check him out) of some esteem and who's just married my friend Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. 

And then I'm going to do an art show in London, and then I'll probably have to do a couple of glam shows. It looks like I'm doing one in London and New York and maybe in Stockholm and Sydney. And I don't do drugs. Haven't done for 15 years...How about that? I'm too old. It's all done on yoga and caffeine these days. 

                  

You had a triple bypass?

It was a quadruple, but it wasn't only that. I was detoxing from 20 years of cocaine and speed and it wasn't what I was eating - I've been a vegetarian for a long time. It was about the fact that I wasn't eating very much or not sleeping and the whole irregularity of my life.

I was always fascinated by the likes of Rimbaud and Baudelaire and company and how to whack your senses out in such a way that you can see things differently. 'Le Dereglement Des Sens' that Rimbaud wrote about. In fact, the documentary director, Barney, sent me an email over the weekend requesting that I send him over a list of the writings that had influenced me because he knew that I studied languages and literature at Cambridge. I realized from the list how pumped my imagination was by all of these crazy poets and writers.

As much as I was interested in the literature itself, I was also interested in the lives they led and, of course, later on, in the '70s when my photography was in full flight I got much more interested in visual artists and, certainly, Paris in the '20s and '30s. And Man Ray became a big obsession of mine.

I suppose we're all like tactile machines, we creatives: we absorb all these different stimuli and process it through us and then spit it out in a new form. I think I imagined myself as being like a crazed poet, except in my case I was a deranged photographer, if you like.

Not only are you interested in musicians, but you're also interested in cats.

Oh, yes. I've even got people talking to me about a cats book. In fact I've just acquired a new kitten...a delightful female Maine Coon, a breed I've been obsessed with for the past 25 years. I've had a succession of them. I need her as a pal for Razor, because we had two die this year unfortunately. Her name is Bellini...

I wonder what it is about cats that some artists find so appealing. I was at Hemingway's House in Key West and there are hundreds of cats on his property. He was a cat lover. 

Cats are very meditative kind of animals because they actually sleep quite a lot and they're very zened down and they're pretty self-sufficient. As long as you feed them and have a litter box and pet them, they're pretty happy. I like other people's dogs, but I never want a dog because they do require a huge amount of work. They can be a little bit demanding, and they want to go out walking. A cat is very soothing. 

I can just sit and watch these cats at times and get off just watching them play or even sleep. I've always liked cats. As long as I can remember, there have been cats in my life. Baudelaire was a big cat lover. I think there's even a famous painting or drawing of him with a cat. Yes, I think a lot of artists do.  

You've been living in New York City since 1977. 

Not really full time until '82. I was running between the two cities for about five years. 

How do you feel about some of the changes in New York?

Well, it has been cleaned up a lot. Alphabet City is a concept now; it's not reality. It's so fashionable these days. I don't spend too much time thinking about these things. I'm too obsessed by what I'm doing in the present, and I tend to accept that change is inevitable. 

I do a lot of kundalini yoga and one of the chief tenets of any form of yoga, is that the world is in a constant state of flux. That's why the concept of political 'conservatism' doesn't really work because you can't hold back change. Change will happen whether you want it to or not. 

At this stage of my life I've learned to be discriminating, but the idea that you can hold back time and change - and, of course, there are lots of pockets in the world where people think they can hold back - but you can't even if you want to. Inevitably, change sooner or later will come. That's just the organic state of the universe.

So I accept those changes. I try to keep a certain continuity nowadays in my own life unlike in my first 40 years of my life. You get to a certain point where you need to achieve a certain stability in your relationships and in your work mode. You need to make clear commitments.

But I know that change is going to keep happening and you've got to be flexible and that's the advantage of being an artist. You learn flexibility. You learn to roll with it. So I'm quite comfortable with all the dramatic changes that have gone on in the modern world, because my life has been changing the whole time anyway. As crazy and as upended as it all is, that's the way my life has always been. So I feel a certain exhilaration.... 

I do know that 2012, according to the Mayans, is the end of it all, but people have been forecasting the end of time for thousands of years. There seems to be a certain resilience about the earth in spite of everything. 

I like to do my work. I like to spend time with people I like and do a lot of yoga, get a lot of massages, do some chanting and meditation and power breathing. These are the things that keep me all balanced. And I've learned to stay away from negative, destructive people. But it takes time in life to learn about that, the powers of discrimination. 

In my youth I embraced everything and everybody, and got myself into all kinds of mischief, the good, the bad and the ugly. Nowadays I am more circumspect, but I try to keep an open mind. I like working with a lot of young musicians and young people in general, that's for sure. I keep learning.

Do musicians come in with ideas?  Is it a collaboration?

It's more about an exchange of energies. I'm always open to what anybody wants to bring to the table. I have something of a reputation, having, if you like, a certain 'pedigree', especially based on a lot of characters and images from the 70s that people are still obsessed by. People tend to come in with a certain amount of respect for that, but I let them know that if they’ve got ideas, I'm game and if not, I'm going to take the bull by the horns and keep running and twisting and turning 'til we squeeze out the magic! 

So it's always collaborative in a sense even if the subject is just sitting there because you are, after all, photographing them. Just their presence is a collaboration. If you review my work, in terms of setups, it's mostly not that complicated. Occasionally they are more elaborate, but not so often. I tend to go for the jugular! I focus down heavily on the people themselves and just play around with lighting and angles and mood. For me those are the most important factors. 

Like a musician, a good photographer must have good timing. 

Photography is about timing, very much about timing. There's definitely a synchronicity between music and photography. There certainly is in my case. Did you get that moment? Click, click, click. The seizing of the moment, the plucking of the frame. 

And quite often, I shoot rhythmically. I'll hit a pattern. If you watch some of the videos of me at work (they're on the internet) you get a certain sense of it. Maybe it's slightly vampiric. I taste a little blood and then I'm off to the races, and I hit my rhythm and then these great things start to happen. 

People often come in and they kind of give me a vague sense of what they want and let me run with it because it's out of the rhythm of the way I work that the images pop. 

Well, like the "Guitar Fellatio" photograph. You caught it just right.  

Well that was the right time, right place, right relationship, yes. I didn't know it was going to happen, but there I was for the encore, on the side of the stage and, as David [Bowie] told me many years later, he wasn't really trying to go down on Mick [Ronson's] guitar he was just trying to gnaw on it, but Mick kept on swinging the guitar around and in fact if you check the shot out, his feet are just splayed apart, he's not actually on his knees. But it was so effective publicity-wise that he recreated it many times from then on.

And in my book Moonage Daydream, my collaboration with David, you'll see the previous shot where he's standing and biting Mick's guitar.