Tupac Shakur bares his torso: Danny Clinch's best photograph
Istarted shooting the music industry in 1992 just as hip-hop was becoming more popular. Some people thought it was going to be a fad and not all photographers were interested in these jobs. But I was, so I began to work with a lot of hip-hop artists, shooting everyone from Public Enemy to LL Cool J.
Many of the artists come with a huge entourage – they bring the party with them. Sometimes that’s fun but other times it can get in your way. When I got the assignment to photograph Tupac from Rolling Stone magazine in 1993, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew Tupac had been in trouble recently, but I grew up not judging people until I met them. He showed up with just one other guy. He was on time and very cordial, he came in and shook my hand. He had a couple of different changes of clothes with him – he was very prepared. I think he knew that at the time Rolling Stone was not putting a lot of hip-hop in the magazine, so saw a great opportunity for himself and his music.
At the time I was doing a series of portraits with large-format cameras – those cameras that look like an accordion where you pull the sheet over your head and your subject has to stay really still. I borrowed that style from one of my heroes, Irving Penn. The idea of just a simple light, with no fill, on a very simple grey backdrop. It’s a powerful way to photograph someone because it really becomes about them – you’re stripping away everything but the person.
In the back of my mind, I was dreaming of a Rolling Stone cover even though the assignment was just a quarter of a page. I shot with that cover in mind, leaving a lot of space, making it a very simple, elegant, strong portrait. Tupac was about to release his second album; I was thinking what if this guy’s next record is really well received and he blows up and I have these great photos of him?
When he was changing shirts, I saw his tattoos, and said: “Oh, man, you know, we should try something without your shirt on.” I knew he was an actor as well, so he understood being in front of a camera and he took direction really well. He was relaxed and smoking weed, but whereas some people make you do all the work, he was very present.
I was also shooting Polaroid. I looked at what was coming out and was like: “Oh man, this is happening.” I showed it to him and he was really into it. ‘That’s beautiful,’ he said. It was a shorter session than I was used to – just a few hours – but I felt like we really got it.
It’s my best-known photograph because Tupac crosses over all the different genres of rock, hip-hop and pop.
Then in 1996 he passed away and it finally ended up on the cover of Rolling Stone. They used a photo from that shoot of him looking straight ahead but I really like this one of him looking to the side and that’s the one people know best. If I hadn’t shot him that way with the cover originally in mind, with all the space, it would have been difficult for them to use it.
It was really sad to see what happened to Tupac. You feel a connection to somebody when you spend an afternoon with them. I think we shared something special and it’s too bad that he didn’t have the opportunity to grow to his full potential.
I look at this photo and it feels like it just always existed. Like, did somebody actually take it? It becomes so iconic that it almost gets away from you. I’ve been in New York and come across bootleg T-shirts with it on. I was in Jamaica and saw some with a bunch of pot leaves all around it. You can’t do anything about that but when a big company who knows the rights and just ignores them, or are misled because they don’t think they need a signature or haven’t done due diligence, then I have to do something about it.
Music is the stuff that gets you through your hard times and helps you celebrate your good times. It’s so important in people’s lives that I feel honoured to have documented history. When I take a photo I want to show the integrity of someone. This photograph is simple and classic and it allows what he was projecting to come through – his positivity and confidence. If you look into his eyes there’s a smart, intelligent, competent person there. I always get my subjects to sign one of the Polaroids and on his Tupac wrote: “If a photograph is worth 1,000 words then photographers are worth a billion.” It was touching.
Danny Clinch’s CV
Born: 1964. New Jersey, USA. Trained: New England School of Photography.
Influences: Irving Penn, Danny Lyon, Annie Leibovitz, Jim Marshall.
High point: ‘Six Bruce Springsteen album covers and counting.’
Low point: ‘No need to focus on those.’
Top tip: ‘Work hard, be nice to people – and go get it.’
In the back of my mind, I was dreaming of a Rolling Stone cover even though the assignment was a quarter-page. When he died in 1996, the photo finally ended up on the cover
pitol remained peaceful, according to multiplenews reports. In Carson City, Nevada, hundreds of Trump supporters drank beer and listened to rock music while denouncing the election results, the Reno Gazette Journal reported.
But in Los Angeles, white Trump supporters assaulted and ripped the wig off the head of a young black woman who happened to pass their 6 January protest, the Los Angeles Times reported. A white woman was captured on video holding the wig and shouting, “Fuck BLM!” and, “I did the first scalping of the new civil war.”
In Ohio and Oregon,fights broke out between counter-protesters and members of the Proud Boys, the neo-fascist group Trump directed in September to “stand back and stand by”. Proud Boys also reportedly demonstrated in Utah, California, Florida and South Carolina.
And in Washington state, Trump supporters, some armed, pushed through the gate of the governor’s mansion and stormed on to the lawn of Democrat Jay Inslee’s house. In Georgia, where lawmakers were evacuated from the state capitol, members of the III% Security Force militia, a group known for its anti-Muslim activism, had gathered outside.
Militia members, neo-Nazis, and other rightwing extremists have discussed multiple potential dates for armed protests in the coming days, researchers who monitor extremist groups say, with proposals ranging from rallies or attacks on state capitols to a “million militia march” in Washington.
The FBI’s intelligence bulletin has warned of potential armed protests from 16 January “at least” through inauguration day on 20 January, but researchers say that energy had not yet coalesced around a single event. Public social media forums where Trump supporters have gathered to discuss plans are full of dramatic, contradictory rumors, but experts say that more concrete plans are likely being made in private and in smaller forums that are more difficult to infiltrate.
The United States has no shortage of heavily armed extremists who have been openly calling for a new civil war, from members of the Boogaloo Bois – a nascent domestic terrorism group that has been linked to the murders of two law enforcement officers – to militia leaders such as Stewart Rhodes, the Yale-educated founder of an antigovernment group that recruits police and military officers, who was photographed outside the Capitol during the mob invasion last week.
Accusations at public protests that Democratic politicians are dictators, tyrants and “traitors” and suggestions that white Americans need to seize power back from their elected officials, have been intensifying for more than a year, fueled in part by furious demonstrations against public health measures that forced businesses to close to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which has disproportionately killed Black and Latino residents.
Before they stormed the US Capitol last week, angry crowds of white Americans, some armed with rifles, had staged chaotic demonstrations at state capitols in Michigan, Idaho, California and elsewhere, often calling law enforcement officers “traitors” when they would not let them pass.
On 6 January, the news that Trump supporters were forcing their way into the Capitol was greeted with cheers at pro-Trump protests in other states. “Patriots have stormed the Capitol,” a protest organizer in Arizona announced, prompting chants of “USA!” according to the Arizona Republic.
“Supposedly, they’re taking the Capitol and taking out Pence,” the organizer of an Idaho protest told a crowd of about 300 people, according to the Spokesman-Review. The crowd cheered.
In Washington DC, part of the mob at the Capitol had been captured on video shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” after the vice-president refused to give in to Trump’s repeated demands to deny the results of the election and name him the winner.
Signs and rhetoric linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that Trump is fighting a secret war against a powerful network of elite pedophiles, were present at multiple state events last week.
In Salem, Oregon, where an effigy of the Democratic governor, Kate Brown, was tarred and feathered before being burned, the protest outside the statehouse turned violent, as Proud Boys clashed with counter-protesters. In Colorado, an estimated 700 people gathered at the state capitol to protest, many of them not wearing masks, and Denver’s mayor announced he was closing municipal buildings early as a precaution.
In Arizona, where 1,000 Trump supporters gathered to protest against the certification of Biden’s victory, the guillotine outside the state capitol had a Trump flag on it, and the Trump supporters who had brought it gave an Arizona Republic reporter a written statement, which included a list of baseless allegations of election fraud, and demands for new fraud audits and investigations.
“Why do we have a guillotine with us? The answer is simple,” the statement read. “For six weeks Americans have written emails, gathered peacefully, made phone calls and begged their elected officials to listen to their concerns. We have been ignored, ridiculed, scorned, dismissed, lied to, laughed at and essentially told, no one cares.
“We pray for peace,” the statement concluded, “but we do not fear war.”