Iggy Pop, 2007 (©Danny Clinch).
“Still is still moving to me,” Willie Nelson said, a beautiful sentiment befitting the photograph itself. A fraction of a second frozen in time, forevermore, is the ephemeral made eternal. This is a kind of magic, something more than art. It is an artifact, a document, witness to history as it unfolds. The photograph must stand the test of time; it must endure so that it can speak to future generations.
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Danny Clinch is a master of the form, seamlessly moving on and off stage with his instrument, the camera guiding his way. More than 200 of his seminal photographs are collected in Still Moving (Abrams Books), along with an essay by Bruce Springsteen, who explains, “When Danny Clinch and I clicked as photographer/subject, it was because somewhere deep inside we had he same points of reference—the same songs and movies dancing in our heads. With each click of the shutter he was scrolling through my record collection, referencing my influences, searching for the same magic. I could feel he’d been mesmerized by the same images of our heroes that made me want to be a musician and that made me, during our shoots, tilt my head down a little (like Elvis), or move to the left into a half shadow (like Dylan) or out into light (like, like…?).
Bruce Springsteen, 2007 (©Danny Clinch).
“I did this for years as a pimply faced teenager in front of the mirror in my bedrooms, searching for the perfect rock-and-roll pose. The only difference is that now I do it in front of his camera. But to do the ‘professional version’ of what you did in front of your mirror as a kid takes trust in the person who holds the camera. A trust so strong that, here in the world of pop, or, as Joe Strummer called it, ‘the land of a thousand stances,’ a common history unfolds, made up of music and images that set the two of us on fire dreaming.”
Beastie Boys, 1998 (©Danny Clinch).
You can see this trust in every photograph that Clinch takes, for his love of music is evident in the quality of his relationships. Still Moving features photographs taken over the past three decades, dating as far back as 1984, with stunning black and white image of David Lee Roth on stage, a high jump so dynamite, you would be amazed. The book features everyone from Dolly Parton to the Beastie Boys, Dr. John to Erykah Badu, David Bowie to Sonic Youth. As Tupac wrote to Clinch, in a spiral-bound notebook where Clinch kept his Polaroids, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, photographers R worth a million!”
Jimmy Page, 2012 (©Danny Clinch).
