Remembering Jim Marshall By Rolling Stone Editor Jason Fine

March 24th, 2010 by Rolling Stone Leave a reply »

Photograph by Danny Clinch

Rock’s most famous photographer, Jim Marshall, has died at age 74. Look back at his remarkable life and career in our obituary and gallery of his most iconic shots of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and more. Read Rolling Stone executive editor Jason Fine’s introduction to Jim Marshall’s book Trust here:

The first time I met Jim Marshall, he hugged me. The next time, he screamed and cursed me out. The circumstances don’t really matter, the emotions do.

Jim is an intense dude: volatile, unpredictable, hilarious, sometimes infuriating, always charming and incredibly generous. Jim’s force of personality comes through in all of his photographs, which are some of the most intimate and iconic portraits of jazz, folk and rock & roll musicians taken over the past fifty years. Most of Jim’s photographs would not have happened had he not cajoled and charmed his way into the lives of his subjects. They definitely would not have happened if Jim’s subjects hadn’t trusted him.

Unlike a lot of the major rock photographers that followed in his path, Jim’s pictures are very straightforward — they don’t come with elaborate concepts, studio props or professional styling. They are really just moments: on stage, in recording studios, hotel rooms, restaurants, buses, or backstage dressing rooms. Most of his shots are taken in natural light, with an old Leica camera. The only demand Jim makes on his subjects is access — a lot of access. “If someone doesn’t want me to shoot them, fine, fuck ‘em,” he says. “But if they do, there can’t be any restrictions.”

Back in rock’s glory days — when Jim was the house photographer at Monterey and Woodstock, when he dropped LSD with the Dead (actuall...

Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily

Advertisement

Leave a Reply