VOA: Rock Icons Showcased in Photo Exhibit

In a career spanning four decades, photographer Mick Rock has captured images of some of the great pop musicians of our time.

Those iconic photographs, now on display in Washington, include 1970s superstars David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, as well as current talents such as Bono, Lady Gaga and Janelle Monae.

Rock was born in London and became interested in photography as a student at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. He was taking classes in modern languages and literature but picked up a friend’s camera one day and started taking pictures of his buddies.

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.