Graham Nash shows candid side in a book of his photographs
He’s a legendary musician and twotime Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, but the thing that Graham Nash never leaves home without isn’t his guitar. It’s his camera.
“Here’s what I do: I wake up every morning. I get on with my day. If I’m leaving the house — sometimes when I’m not leaving the house — I take my camera and I say to myself, ‘OK, the world is going to show me something fantastic today. What is it? Come on, show me,’” he says.
The singer-songwriter is now ready to show us what he’s seen with “A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash,” a collection from Insight Editions spanning decades that captures many fellow artists like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass Elliot, Twiggy and, of course, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
“I’m a curious man about the world, and I see strange things,” Nash says. “I see differently than most people. I’m not trying to brag about it. I just know that I see differently.”
The book mixes intimate portraits and concert shots with surreal images Nash has happened upon, moving from a shot of a sleeping David Crosby to images from Woodstock to a mirrored building’s reflection or the shadow from a bicycle on the street.
“I’ve been doing it for 70 years and you get to feel when something’s going to happen. You get to be able to put yourself in a place where Elvis comes around the corner on the back of an elephant,” he says. “I’m waiting for the world to show me something fantastic, and it always does.”
The book comes out Tuesday and Nash plans to talk about it on Dec. 5 in a discussion streaming live from New York City’s 92nd Y.