HENRY DILTZ: PHOTOGRAPHIC LEGEND
In 1977, as Paul McCartney headed out on a boat in the Caribbean to record his “London Town” record, he went out of his way to request the accompaniment of now legendary photographer Henry Diltz so that Diltz could do his “fly on the wall thing.” And indeed, this “thing” has always been what has made Diltz so famous in the normally private lives of music’s royalty. Diltz never went to photo school and never studied photography. In fact, the only instruction he ever got was from the back of the little yellow Kodak film box that told him, “If you are shooting in sunshine, make it “250ths of a second and F8.” And out of that lesson, sprung much of Rock n Roll’s most legendary photographic history.
“Photography became my career the first year I was taking pictures, which was 1966. I was a folk musician in the band, Modern Folk Quartet and we were traveling around the country doing concerts. In one trip we stopped and bought these funky cameras and photographed each other for the rest of the tour and got back to LA and had a big slide show for all of our friends and it was so entertaining that I wanted to take a lot more pictures so I could have more slide shows. So I would photograph my friends quite a bit and some of my friends were well known, like David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Mamma Cass. And so I would photograph them, but they were always friends first. I would be at Mamma Cass’s house and at the swimming pool or at Stephen Stills’ house or whatever and I would take their picture, not because they were famous but because they were friends of mine.”
And through this friendship, Henry had unprecedented access and the ease of his subjects, which would enable him to capture such authentic and genuine moments. “They didn’t see me as a photographer. I was just their friend with a camera in my hand, so it was just a very natural thing. I would get these very relaxed photos and suddenly people wanted to use them on album covers and for publicity photos and everything else. And so, it became a way of making a living, an accidental occupation. I’ve thought of it as that for the 44 years I’ve been shooting.”
“Eventually after 30 some odd years of taking photos, people started asking me about my archive. And I would think, “archive, what the hell does that mean?” And I would say, “No I just have a bunch of pictures laying around in boxes.” About 10 years ago, my pictures starting getting used for their historical value and that has become my primary job these days, sending my work out for books, magazines, newspapers, documentary films, all kinds of things. There became such a demand that now we have photo galleries in New York and San Diego and we represent 62 other photographers as well. The galleries are named after one of my more famous photographs, the Morrison Hotel, which became the cover for a Doors album.”
“Naturally, a lot of my photos were taken in concerts, but the ones that people like and the ones that end up on the gallery wall are really shot behind the scenes. People really like to see what it’s like for these people in their real life. Ya know, in their back yard or in their living room or even on the tour bus or in the back of the dressing room. Everybody can see these guys on stage, and any photographer can take the same picture of these artists performing. All of those photos look very similar, of course, but it’s when you get that one of a kind thing that’s shot when their guard isn’t up, when they are not on stage, that is what people like to see. And I was lucky enough to get to hang out with these musicians in that way.”
Crosby Stills & Nash:
“That’s the famous first album cover for Crosby, Stills and Nash. That was taken casually one afternoon for a publicity shot. They wanted to use it as an album cover, but they were sitting in the wrong order because this is before they finalized the name of the band, the order of their names. They are sitting in the order of Nash, Stills and Crosby, so I said, no problem, we’ll go back in a couple of days and retake the photo, but when we went back, the house was gone. It was abandoned and they demolished it. So we had to use the photo for the album cover with the band sitting out of order.”
Tom Waits
“Tom was a friend of mine and he was working on the music for Coppola’s movie, “One from the Heart,” and I took those pictures while he was doing an interview. I really like the feel of that photo with the piano in the foreground and Tom Waits singing back on the chair with his pointy shoes and sheet music all over the floor.”
Joni Mitchell
“Joni is in the window of her home in Laurel Canyon. She was a neighbor of mine, we both lived on Lookout Mountain Avenue and she was living in the house that had the famous Graham Nash song, “Our House is a very, very, very fine house.” And I would stop by from time to time and I took pictures every now and again. Joni is a very beautiful person and artist. She was one of those artists where it came straight from the heart. That house is still there today.”
The Doors
“That was a transient hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The sign in the window says rooms, $2.50. It was a place where winos and transients lived. And the guy at the front desk wouldn’t give us permission to shoot photos in the lobby so we went outside and when we got outside I saw the guy leave and get in the elevator so I said, “Quick, run in there you guys,” and we shot it in five minutes, click, click, click and got out of there. And that later became the Doors album cover.”
Keith Richard/Ron Wood
“This was taken in a Learjet when we were flying from LA to San Diego and those guys were a captive audience for my camera, but on the other hand, I was a captive audience for their little Keith and Ronnie show that they were doing. They were constantly joking and messing around.”
Neil Young Ranch
“That was taken one morning in 1971, at Neil’s California ranch. We were walking around with his” dog and Neil stepped outside of a barn for a moment and I saw him standing there and I took a couple of frames. Like many of the photos, it wasn’t something that was planned, it just happened in an instant.”
Everybody from Matt Damon to Sheryl Crowe and the Olsen Twins have acquired Henry’s photographs and they are publicly available to be viewed or purchased at the following locations.
The Morrison Hotel Gallery- NYC
124 Prince Street
NY, NY 10012
p): 212-941-8770
The Morrison Hotel Gallery- San Diego
2670 Via De La Valle
Del Mar, CA 92014
p): 85-350-3777
www.morrisonhotelgallery.com
