HUFFINGTON POST Interview With Mick Rock

The recipe for a quality rock ‘n roll photo is typically simple and standard: put a badass rock star in front of the lens and a photographer blessed with an eye for composition behind it. Let a few hours pass, a few photos develop and the whole process culminates with an image fully prepped to grace the cover of Rolling Stone.

Although this is the formula for the majority of the photos of rock stars we see daily, in the case of Mick Rock, the roles of “star” and “photographer” are not so clearly defined. Notoriously donned “the man who shot the 70s,” Mick Rock’s iconic shots of David Bowie, Queen, Iggy Pop and Joan Jett have boosted Mick Rock’s name to household status, spreading the focus of the photo from the artists posing to the artist shooting. (See full article here)

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.

A camera is a wonderful ally. It requires minimal maintenance and provides entry to a world of endless imagery.

My ambition was not to be a great photographer (though that certainly would have been a worthy stance). It was a lust to embrace anything that startled or energized me.

I am not in the business of documenting or revealing personalities. I am in the business of freezing shadows and bottling auras.

Without the rock ‘n rollers, I would not have developed as an image man.

You want to shock people with a bit of mystery and beauty. That’s my favorite kind of shocking.

I’ve never felt like a voyeur, although I’ve certainly done plenty of looking!

There’s an art to looking back - how to celebrate the past without being entrapped by it. Photographs provide the great physical link.

My allegiance was always to the act. I wanted them to be happy. I wasn’t owned by a magazine or a record label.

I smell pictures more than I see them and I hear pictures more than I can smell them. It’s very habit forming.