Photographed indelible images of 1970s’ rock greats
Mick Rock, a British photographer who helped shape the visual identity of rock-and-roll in the 1970s, with indelible portraits of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry and other stars of what became known as the glam-rock era, died Nov. 18 in New York City.
He was 72.
His family announced his death in a statement on his website and on social media. The cause was not immediately disclosed.
Rock, often called “the man who shot the ’70s,” became a photographer almost by accident while was a student at the University of Cambridge in England in the late 1960s.
“I was at the home of a friend who had all the toys, including a great record player and camera,” he told the New York Post in March. “Sitting around his room, tripping on blotter acid, I picked up the camera and began playing with it.”
Everything about it felt right — the sound of the shutter, the flash of light, the sense of searching for the essence of the person on the other side of the lens. Rock was barely 20 when he took his portraits of a budding rock star, Syd Barrett, a friend who was a co-founder of Pink Floyd.
“He looked like a poète maudit,” Rock told NPR’s “Fresh Air,” using a term that described an antisocial “accursed poet” in 19thcentury France. “He just had that romantic aura about him.”
Early in 1972, Rock met Bowie, then in his androgynous “Ziggy Stardust” period. Bowie had a shock of bright red hair, wore elaborate makeup and outfits, and projected an air of glamour, danger and sexual ambivalence.
One of their first portrait sessions took place, improbably enough, in Bowie’s infant son’s bedroom. Rock recognized in Bowie a near-perfect subject: He had a beautiful face and a powerful persona that Rock considered the essence of rock-and-roll.
“Remember they are often called an ‘act’ — and it’s for a reason,” Rock told
the Staten Island Advance in 2009. “They have to become the character they have created to project their music, their art — something bigger than life. Even I go through a change and become this rather raucous and very high-key character, ‘Mick Rock,’ when I take photos.”
Rock was Bowie’s personal photographer for several years, and the two became close friends. Bowie introduced him to other rising figures in the rock world, including Reed and Pop. Rock captured memorable images of both, including some black-andwhite shots of Reed performing in London.
While Rock was developing the photos, they went slightly out of focus. One picture, showing Reed peering out, while wearing eye makeup and holding his guitar, became the cover art for his 1972 album “Transformer.” It became, in many ways, the defining image of Reed.
“For the rest of his career, he was haunted by that particular shot,” Rock said in 2016. “A lot of people don’t even think that’s a performance shot because it’s a very quiet shot.”
About the same time, Rock photographed a gaunt, shirtless Pop holding the microphone and looking pensively into the audience. That image became the cover of Pop’s 1973 album “Raw Power.”
In 1974, Rock made a group portrait of the British glam-rock band Queen, showing their faces in stark shadows as lead singer Freddie Mercury crossed his hands over his chest. The photo, which appeared on the cover of the album
“Queen II,” was modeled after a movie still Rock had seen of Marlene Dietrich in the 1932 film “Shanghai Express.”
Rock later photographed dozens of rock musicians, including the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Joan Jett and Blondie’s Debbie Harry, whom he called “the most naturally photogenic person I’ve ever shot.” In 1975, he shot still photographs on the set of the cult classic film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Rock moved to New
York in 1977 and, for years, was a fixture in the rockand-roll world, indulging in the sex and drugs that went with it.
“I was not an outsider,” he told NPR. “This was my life, too. I mean, I didn’t play an instrument, but I lived the life.”
Rock was born Nov. 22, 1948, in London. Little is known of his early life, and even his name is in doubt. He usually said his given name was Michael David Rock. But in a 2017 online interview, he said that he was named Michael Edward Chester Smith for the first two years of his life and that he was born after his mother had an affair with an American airman.
Rock lived for many years on Staten Island with his wife, Pati Rock, and their daughter, Nathalie, who survive him.