The maverick photographer who shot rock icons
Mick Rock 1948–2021
Mick Rock was often called “the man who shot the ’70s.” The British photographer was one of rock music’s most acclaimed portraitists for more than 50 years, but it was among that decade’s flamboyant, decadent artists that he made his greatest mark. Among his best-known images are a shirtless Iggy Pop gazing skyward on the cover of the LP Raw Power (1973), a washed-out Lou Reed on Transformer (1973), and the dark, shadowed images of Queen on Queen II (1974). His most enduring subject was David Bowie, captured by Rock in scores of striking shots during his androgynous Ziggy Stardust period. Rock said he gained an edge by indulging in the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle he chronicled. “I’ve lived a very wild life because I’ve been hanging out with a lot of very wild people,” he said. “The camera just kind of led me by the nose.”
Michael Rock was born in London and took up photography while studying modern languages at Cambridge University, said The New York Times. During an LSD trip, he started toying with a friend’s camera and became smitten. Rock got his own and “began taking pictures of friends and friends’ friends,” including Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett, a fellow student. Barrett led him to other musicians, some of whom paid commissions. “I suddenly realized you could make money from this,” Rock said. In 1972 he connected with Bowie, a beguiling subject with “a powerful persona that Rock considered the essence of rock ’n’ roll,” said The Washington Post. He became personal photographer to Bowie, who introduced him to Reed and Pop.
In 1977 Rock moved to New York City, where he shot Blondie, the Ramones, “and Andy Warhol, dressed as Father Christmas, giving Truman Capote a hug,” said The Times (U.K.). But “once the ’80s were underway, photography began to take a backseat” to cocaine and other vices. Rock got clean after a quadruple bypass and a kidney transplant in 1996. “It was God’s way of giving me a good smack for being such a naughty boy for too many years,” he explained. Rock remained in demand as a photographer, shooting younger artists such as Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, and the Foo Fighters. Photography is “like a hit song,” he said in 2017. “I still want to produce a picture that people will come back to again and again.”