RIFF RAF: Great Rock Photographers

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.”

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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.