DNA INFO.COM: Rock ‘n’ Roll Photographer Mick Rock Debuts First Photo Art Show

CHELSEA — Legendary photographer Mick Rock, who shot rock ‘n’ roll giants from David Bowie and Lou Reed to Queen and Lady Gaga, is putting on his first ever art show — a collection of digitally altered images of music royalty.

The “Man Who Shot the Seventies,” as Rock is known, is displaying enhanced versions of his old prints of famous artists, including Bob Marley and Madonna, at a show at the CATM Chelsea gallery on 22nd Street and 10th Avenue, starting Thursday night.

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.