Music Photography Quotes

I met The Beatles and Stones at the same time, because Michael Cooper was doing several of their album covers.

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

I was making stickers for guys' bands. I was in the front row photographing bands, booking bands, doing all of the kind of backstage stuff, and I didn't even think for a second I could do it, and then I saw Babes in Toyland, and all that changed.

In 1979, I moved to England and photographed Joy Division and Bowie and Beefheart. At that time I got images that I felt had that special, well - power is a big word to say - more like intimacy and ambition that outlasted the photo shoot. I felt that they would have a longer life.

Most people if I like their music, I can get good pictures.

It was really inspiring to be in West London in the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially in Mark Lebon's Crunch Studios, where I met people like Ray Petri, Neneh Cherry, Judy Blame, Nick and Barry Kamen, Zoe Bedeaux, and Venetia Scott.

I was into punk rock back when I was in high school. I used to go around to dive venues and take photographs. But now it's been just much more about the country stuff and soulful folk.

I'd photographed musicians before but this was different. Syd was very charismatic, and he had the aura of a poete maudit, which made him the perfect subject for me - I realised that rock n' rollers were the modern equivalent of all the poets I was so enamoured with.

Recording sessions were stimulating to photograph, because everything was in motion: the subject, the musicians, the technicians and the photographer. You needed fast reflexes to keep up with moving targets, and sensitivity and skill to get the pictures while keeping out of the performers' eyeline so as not to break their concentration.

Esquire, in a July, 1957 issue, has a photograph of me playing the French horn at the Five Spot.

In England, I'm already labeled a rock photographer, which is a little insulting, because I'm not a rock photographer at all.

When I was young, I was a sucker for smooth men. Bryan Ferry hired me, at 19, to be painted blue and dress up as a mermaid for the cover of his album 'Siren.' It was love at first sight.

I didn't take that many pictures of The Beatles, but I did photograph them before anybody else knew about them, and that makes me proud. I saw something in them.

I have a lot of respect for these rock photographers. You realize that some of them were really led into the inner circles of some of these artists and bands. And you see how those photographs really capture the artist, the moment.

I collect head shots from bands.

I feel very comfortable shooting music, and I think you can see that.

I had done a lot of rock 'n' roll photography when I was in college. I was one of many photographers who worked for The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and all of these rock 'n' roll bands.