Maddona and Mick Rock

Last night at his THE LEGEND SERIES opening at CATM Gallery, Mick Rock told us the story of working with a young singer that you’ve probably come to know by now.

“A friend of mine called Bleeker Bob (of the Greenwich Village record store) used to bring stray characters and musicians to my Madison Avenue studio. This would have been 1980. And one day Madonna appeared…She wasn’t known, she hadn’t even made a record, she told me she was a dancer. I took a few little test pictures and forgot about them for 20 years. She stuck her tongue out in the photo; she already knew about the camera. I didn’t say anything like ‘stick our tongue out, doll.’ That was purely spontaneous on her part. Who would have thought? But then again, I never really thought about anything. I just rolled with it. I was always on a roll…”

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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.