The Desert Trip Photography Experience

Featuring: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, The Who and Neil Young

A one-of-a-kind, 36,000 square foot exhibit with over 200 classic and rarely seen images from rock's glorious heyday. Featuring the work of over a dozen of the biggest names in rock & roll photography, including:

Michael Cooper, Henry Diltz, Lynn Goldsmith, Bob Bonis, Bob Gruen, Elliott Landy, Gered Mankowitz, Jim Marshall, David Montgomery, Terry O’Neill, Denis O'Regan, Ethan Russell, Barrie Wentzell, Baron Wolman and more...

• 2 p.m. – 7 p.m. Friday-Sunday (both weekends)
• One of the largest exhibits of its kind
• Massive indoor tent
• Central bar and lounge
• Air-conditioned
• Free to all ticket holders

The Desert Trip Photography Experience captures the nascent energy of the Sixties and Seventies rock milieu, with well over 200 photos featuring Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, The Who, and Neil Young. Shot by legendary photographers synonymous with the era, these images are as timeless as the music itself. These sometimes choreographed but often candid moments collectively tell the story of rock & roll’s rise to cultural prominence on both sides of the pond. Taken during an era fueled by the insatiable drive to innovate with this new art form and freely test the limits of creativity, these images (and their subjects) helped to define modern notions of youth, fame, style, sex appeal, confidence, and consciousness–and, of course, cool.

The photographers whose works are on display represent the pinnacle of rock photography from an era before musicians maintained carefully controlled public personas. These shooters, highly skilled with their cameras, were equally adept at embedding themselves with their subjects—attending the same parties, sampling the same intoxicants, sometimes sharing the same apartments. Through a 35mm lens, friendships formed, trust took root, stories were recorded or concealed, and an otherwise fleeting moment became immortalized. The stories of the images are as fascinating as the subjects themselves. The results sometimes stripped away the artifice of celebrity photography. In its place came a new standard in realism, where even the most posed pictures still reveled in the personalities of those being photographed and where even the most candid shots managed to maintain an enviable amount of attitude.

Occupying 35,000 sq ft. of space, with many images printed larger than they have ever been seen before, the exhibit captures six of the most iconic artists of all time in relaxed and unscripted moments—at home, off stage, in the studio, and on tour. Other shots capture the epitome of rock star heroes at their most heightened creative states—in the throes of artistic expression on stage or delving deep into their craft in the studio.

With contributions curated across a dozen renowned photographers’ image archives, plus selections from Getty Images, the Desert Trip Photography Experience offers one of the largest collections of vintage rock imagery ever assembled. It is a once-in-a-lifetime look at six of rock's biggest acts through the lenses of many of the music's most revered witnesses.

Michael Cooper

SAN FRANCISCO ART EXCHANGE

An intimate of The Rolling Stones during the band’s earliest years, Michael Cooper chronicled the group’s rise from the blues clubs of London to international stardom. Referred to as the band’s “court photographer” from 1963 until his untimely death in 1973, Cooper at one point lived with Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg, cultivating the sort of comradeship that allowed him to capture some of the most unguarded and honest images taken of the Stones during their first decade.

Widely acknowledged to be the inspiration for Michelangelo Antonioni’s seminal Sixties film, Blow-Up, Cooper was also behind the lens at two of the decade’s most iconic album cover shoots, Sgt. Pepper´s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Their Satanic Majesties Request, both of which remain quintessential images of the era’s psychedelic sensibility.

Henry Diltz

Morrison Hotel Gallery

A founding member of the Modern Folk Quartet (MFQ), Henry Diltz began taking photos while on tour with the group using a Japanese camera that he bought second hand for twenty dollars.

After MFQ disbanded in 1966, Diltz turned his creative instincts toward photography full time. As a resident of the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles in the Sixties and Seventies, Diltz was at the center of one of rock’s most fertile communities. His first professional work was the cover of the album Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful, a record on which he also played clarinet. He would go on to photograph the covers of classic albums like James Taylor's Sweet Baby James, The Doors' Morrison Hotel, and the self-titled Crosby, Stills & Nash album. He was also onstage at Woodstock, capturing photos of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Who. Perhaps the most frequent artist in Diltz archive is Neil Young, whom he has photographed extensively throughout the singer’s 50-year career.

Diltz is a co-founder of the Morrison Hotel Gallery, one of the world’s premier fine art music photography galleries, with locations in New York, Los Angeles and Maui. He continues to take photos of musicians today.

Lynn Goldsmith

Rockandrollphotogallery.com

A true entertainment industry pioneer, Lynn Goldsmith began her career at Elektra Records in the late Sixties before going to work as a director for Joshua TV, one of the first companies to do live concert video screens, in 1971. That same year, she became the youngest woman to be inducted into the Director’s Guild of America. The following year, Goldsmith became a director for ABC’s In Concert, the first rock show on network television. She also directed We’re An American Band, a documentary on Grand Funk Railroad that led to her comanaging the band.

Throughout her entire career, Goldsmith photographed the musicians she encountered. In the process, she captured famous images of a swimming Roger Daltry, a lounging Bob Marley, and many photos of a smoking Keith Richards. She also snapped a famed image of The Beatles in 1964, but only their feet (because she was a Stones fan and thought the only thing cool about the Fab Four was their pointed boots).

In 1976, she founded the LGI Photo Agency, one of the first agencies to focus on entertainment and celebrity photographs. Goldsmith has published 12 books of her music and fine art photography. Her pictures reside in numerous collections, including The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Bob Bonis

bobbonis.com

Bob Bonis (1932-1992) held an extraordinary position at a pivotal time in music history, serving as the tour manager for both The Rolling Stones and The Beatles on both bands’ first tours of America in 1964. His unequaled access to these two groups yielded an archive of almost 3,500 intimate, unguarded photographs that remained mostly unknown throughout his lifetime.

The Bob Bonis Archive was founded to honor his legacy and to make limited edition fine-art prints of his photographs available to fans and collectors. In an exclusive partnership with the GRAMMY Museum® at LA Live, each print is accompanied by their COA. His photographs comprise the main photographic element of the GRAMMY Museum’s traveling exhibition, Ladies and Gentlemen… The Beatles!

Since the founding of the archive Bob’s photographs have been included in The Rolling Stones official documentary Crossfire Hurricane, Keith Richards’ autobiography Life, the eponymously titled Taschen Sumo book, The Rolling Stones, that celebrated the band’s 50th anniversary, and many others. Most recently, his photographs were featured in the Ron Howard-directed Beatles documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, appearing on the theatrical movie poster and companion CD to the film, The Beatles - Live At The Hollywood Bowl.

A global traveling exhibition of his photographs is being planned to launch in 2017.

Bob Gruen

Bobgruen.com

Bob Gruen’s first photo pass was for Bob Dylan’s infamous “gone electric” appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. It would be the beginning of a 50-year career spent capturing many of rock’s most significant historical moments around the world.

In 1972, the New York native became the personal photographer of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, documenting the couple’s Seventies love affair with the Big Apple and taking the famous photo of the ex-Beatle wearing his “New York City” t-shirt.

During the same era, Gruen served as chief photographer for Rock Scene Magazine, touring extensively with emerging punk and new wave bands such as the New York Dolls, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Ramones, Patti Smith Group and Blondie, while also photographing rock royalty that included Led Zeppelin, The Who, David Bowie, Tina Turner, Elton John, Aerosmith, Kiss and Alice Cooper.

In 2011, award-winning director Don Letts made a feature length film titled Rock & Roll Exposed – the Photography of Bob Gruen that included interviews with Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Alice Cooper, Yoko Ono, Billie Joe Armstrong, and many more. Gruen’s “Sid Vicious with Hot Dog” photo was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 1999 for its permanent collection.

Elliott Landy

Elliottlandy.com

Elliott Landy began his photography career in the late Sixties, working with underground newspapers to express his own visual voice in support of the antiwar sentiment throughout the United States. His press pass and camera not only gave him access to the political scene but also provided him entry into the new rock music counterculture. For him, taking photographs of musicians was an act of political activism, to make people aware of an alternative way to live and be.

His iconic photographs of Bob Dylan and The Band during the years they resided and recorded in the small arts colony of Woodstock, New York, along with his coverage of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, captured the attention of a new generation seeking spiritual and artistic freedom. His imagery has become synonymous with the town, the famed 1969 music festival, and the utopian spirit of the Woodstock Generation.

Best known for his classic rock photographs, Elliott Landy was one of the first music photographers to be recognized as an artist. His celebrated works include portraits of Bob Dylan (Nashville Skyline), The Band (Music From Big Pink and The Band), Janis Joplin (Big Brother & The Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills), Van Morrison (Moondance), Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and others.

Since 1967, Elliott’s work has been exhibited and published worldwide. He is the author of seven books and the architect of a new software program, LandyVision, which creates an interactive music and visual experience that has never been seen before—to be released next year.

Gered Mankowitz

Morrison Hotel Gallery

Born in 1946 in London, Gered Mankowitz left school at age 15 and found himself at the center of the swinging Sixties when he befriended legendary record producer Andrew Loog Oldham, who invited Mankowitz and his camera on tour with The Rolling Stones for nine weeks in the autumn of 1965. He remained the band’s official photographer until 1967, then going on to shoot three decades of music’s most iconic faces, including Jimi Hendrix, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces, Slade, Suzi Quatro, Elton John, Kate Bush, Eurythmics, ABC, Duran Duran, and many others. In 1982, his major exhibition at London’s Photographer’s Gallery broke records with over 16,000 attendees before touring the UK for over two years.

Gered continued to shoot the next generation of ground-breaking musicians such as Oasis, Buena Vista Social Club, and The Verve. He has published 16 books of his work, including multiple collections of his Stones and Hendrix images. His work is sold in galleries around the world, including London, Manchester, Glasgow, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Tokyo.

In 2007, Gered moved to Cornwall and now spends most of his time working with his archive and on his own projects, as well as teaching at University College Falmouth. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary Fellowship to The Royal Photographic Society.

Jim Marshall

Jimmarshallphotographyllc.com

During the extraordinary rise of popular culture and counterculture in the Sixties, Jim Marshall seemed to be everywhere that mattered. His images of the Monterey Pop Festival, which chronicled the breakout performances of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, were woven into the lore of the era. Johnny Cash's groundbreaking concerts from Folsom Prison and San Quentin Prison were also captured by the lens of Marshall's camera. In a career that ended with his untimely death in 2010, Marshall shot more than 500 album covers; his photographs reside in private collections and museums around the world.

Posthumously, Jim Marshall holds the distinction of being the first and only photographer to be presented with the Recording Academy's Trustee Award, an honorary Grammy presented to individuals for nonperformance contributions to the music industry.

Marshall saw himself as an anthropologist and a journalist, visually recording the explosion of creativity and celebrity of the Sixties and Seventies. His images employed a minimum of artifice to document people and events. Not interested in conventional beauty or technical perfection, Marshall sought to capture character: the simple truth of who a person was. His photo essays on civil rights and political unrest are a testament to his concern for the human condition.

Jim Marshall Photography LLC was established with the primary goal to preserve and protect Marshall's extraordinary legacy as a discerning photojournalist and a pioneer of rock & roll photography.

David Montgomery

San Francisco Art Exchange

Born in Brooklyn, award-winning photographer David Montgomery, in the early Sixties, David fell in love with the soft, romantic English light and took up residence in London, where he continues to live with his family.

Montgomery is internationally known as a portrait photographer of high profile statesmen and celebrities. Among some of his previous sitters are: British royalty HM Queen Elizabeth II; politicians Baroness Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, and Pierre Trudeau; artists Andy Warhol, Lucien Freud, David Hockney, and Francis Bacon; musicians Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Dolly Parton, and Willie Nelson; actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Pierce Brosnan, Clint Eastwood, and Sean Connery; and icons Professor Stephen Hawking, Alfred Hitchcock, and Muhammad Ali, among others.

David Montgomery has contributed regularly to Vogue, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph and Rolling Stone. He was commissioned by the post office to photograph a special edition stamp for the Millennium that won a silver award at the D&AD (Design and Art Direction Awards). His Andy Warhol photographs were recently exhibited in the Andy Warhol: Self Portraits exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and have since been added to the permanent collection at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA.

Terry O'Neill

Iconic Images

Terry O’Neill is one of the world’s most collected photographers with work hanging in national art galleries and private collections worldwide. From presidents to pop stars, he has photographed the frontline of fame for over six decades.

O’Neill began his career at the birth of the Sixties. While other photographers concentrated on earthquakes, wars, and politics, O’Neill realized that youth culture was a breaking news story on a global scale and began chronicling the emerging faces of film, fashion, and music who would go on to define the Swinging Sixties. By 1965, he was receiving commissions from the biggest magazines and newspapers in the world.

No other living photographer has embraced the full span of fame, capturing the icons of our age from Winston Churchill to Nelson Mandela, from Frank Sinatra and Elvis to Amy Winehouse, from Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot to Nicole Kidman, as well as every James Bond from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.

O’Neill photographed The Beatles and The Rolling Stones when they were still struggling young bands in 1963, pioneered backstage reportage photography with David Bowie, Elton John, The Who, Eric Clapton and Chuck Berry, and his images have adorned historic rock albums, movie posters, and international magazine covers.

Denis O’Regan

denis.co.uk

Known as “Doris” by Freddie Mercury, “Reg” by Duran Duran and on one occasion “Yob” by Keith Richards, Denis O’Regan was taken by his mother to see The Beatles at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1963. He was inspired to take up photography after seeing David Bowie at the same venue in 1973 and, by 1976, was sneaking his camera into concerts by Paul McCartney and Queen, the latter of whom would take him on tour as their official photographer in 1984.

A regular shooter for New Music Express at the height of the UK punk explosion, he graduated from covering The Jam, The Buzzcocks and The Clash in the late Seventies to touring with The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Pink Floyd in the 80s and 90s. He was also the official photographer for the Wembley Live Aid Concert and claims to have been kissed on the lips by Pete Townshend.

O’Regan’s photos have appeared in Time, Life, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, GQ and Photo, along with hundreds of newspapers and music magazines. His photo of Freddie Mercury was utilized in the design of the Royal Mail's Millennium first class postage stamp.

Ethan Russell

ethanrussell.com

The only photographer to shoot album covers for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, Ethan Russell is a multiple Grammy–nominated photographer and director whose career began accidentally when he was asked to take a photo of Mick Jagger that ended up on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Ten years younger than Elvis and two years younger than Mick and Keith, Russell was born into the first two eras of rock & roll and worked in the heart of the music scene from 1968 through 1978. He has published three books, including the 420-page Let It Bleed, which documents the Stone’s 1969 American tour that lead to Altamont.

Russell currently performs his multimedia show The Best Seat In the House, where he willingly shares behind-the-scenes details of his magical adventures in the Sixties and Seventies with the world’s biggest bands.

Barrie Wentzell

barriewentzell.com

Following a chance encounter with Diana Ross in 1965 that appeared on the cover of England’s weekly music magazine Melody Maker, Barrie Wentzell became exclusive chief photographer of the influential publication, a position he held from 1965 to 1975.

During his tenure, Wentzell photographed several generations of musical greats, from Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and countless more.

In 1975, Wentzell abandoned his Soho studio, leaving photography behind to move to the Isle of Wight and pursue a completely different direction. He continues to contribute his work to exhibitions, museums, private collections, books, CDs and DVDs worldwide. He is currently working on a book of his own to coincide with a documentary film and international exhibition. He lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Baron Wolman

Iconic Images

Baron Wolman ranks among the 20th Century’s elite and most collectible photographers. As the first photographer for Rolling Stone, he was granted unique access to rock & roll’s emerging icons, from Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix and The Who.

Wolman’s reputation with a camera, plus his eye for talent and a story, gave him a ticket to ride on tour buses from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock. His cover stories launched legends such as Tina Turner and James Taylor and gave him the keys to the dressing rooms and homes of rock & roll’s biggest stars.

But Wolman also kept a sharp eye out for the shifts in youth-inspired fashion and culture. He was the first to identify—and photograph—the emerging groupie phenomenon, befriending the girls and persuading them to pose for historic portraits that captured the freedom and style of young women newly liberated by the pill, fashion and music.

Ever vigilant for a cover story, he recognized the need to chronicle other emerging talent—young guns of literature, art and jazz. Wolman spotted and photographed the tectonic cultural shift of San Francisco's Summer Of Love that heralded the age of the hippie. He even started his own magazine, Rags, to explore the scene as the phrase “turn on, tune in, drop out” became the global mantra for a generation.

Few living photographers rode the roller coaster of the Sixties alongside the icons of that age.

Photos.com by Getty Images

Photos.com by Getty Images helps you bring stories home with expertly printed and framed photography sourced exclusively from Getty Images’ unrivaled archive and photography collections. Its extensive library includes music selections from The LIFE Picture Collection, Redferns, and the Michael Ochs Archive, as well as hundreds of contributing music photographers going back to the earliest days of rock.

San Francisco Art Exchange

Founded in 1983 by Theron Kabrich and Jim Hartley, San Francisco Art Exchange LLC represents many of the most important pop culture artworks created by iconic artists worldwide. Recognized as market pioneers and premier purveyors of original pop iconography, with over 100 major exhibitions, SFAE has sold such original artwork and photos from the iconic covers of Dark Side of the Moon, Abbey Road, Umma Gumma, Candy-o, Let It Bleed, Blonde on Blonde, Animals, Drama and many more.

Following their first photographic exhibition of work by Annie Leibovitz in 1989, SFAE have gone on to exhibit and sell photographs by many of the greatest entertainment and journalistic photographers of the past 50 years, including most of those whose historic works are on display at Desert Trip Photo Experience. They have been the primary dealer for art by Rolling Stone guitarist Ronnie Wood since 1987 and hosted the first photo exhibit by Pattie Boyd, the famous subject of the songs “Something” and “Layla.”

The 3,000 sq. ft. downtown SF gallery holds 3,000 pieces on-site and has hosted live performances by such greats as Brian Wilson and Graham Nash, as well as holding speaking engagements with civil rights legend, Clarence Jones, and former Michigan governor, Jennifer Granholm. Recent projects include a collaboration with urban artist Shepard Fairey and the Jim Marshall Estate focused on social justice issues, as well as consulting on Ron Howard’s recent Beatles documentary, Eight Days a Week.