Baron Wolman
Lensman royalty BORN 1937
Baron Wolman’s first paid photograph was, famously, a shot of the Berlin Wall being built in August 1961, for which he was paid $50 by his hometown paper, the Columbus Dispatch. The former philosophy student and German speaker was in the divided city working in counterintelligence for the US Army. Six years later, in San Francisco, he was also in the right place at the right time, when Jann Wenner asked him to join his new publishing venture, Rolling Stone.
Though he only stayed for three years, Wolman would amass an unrivalled portfolio of that crucial and glorious juncture in rock history. His inaugural job was photographing his Haight-Ashbury neighbours the Grateful Dead, defiant and wielding firearms after a pot bust in October 1967. A month later, his first live assignment was The Who at the Cow Palace. Vivid portraiture of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Zappa, Joan Baez, Jim Morrison, Ike & Tina Turner and many more would follow, including the famous open-mouthed image of Hendrix in full flight at the Fillmore West in February ’68, and celebrated scenes of the Woodstock freaks at play. He initially worked for the magazine gratis, but, crucially, kept the rights to his black and white images.
Straight, professional and naturally discreet in a still-forming world of excess and money, he knew how to put his subjects at their ease and took full advantage of a pre-corporate milieu where a photographer had all the access he needed (literally) on-stage and off-. He also referred to the importance of being attuned to the flow of a live performance to capture the optimum moment.
He left the magazine in 1970, when, he said, business encroached and he could no longer take pictures the way he wanted to. He later founded style magazine Rags, moved into aerial, sports and motor racing photography, and curated his archive with style. He was a friend to MOJO, and we will miss him.