Ethan Russell On His Journey to Photographic Longevity

Ethan Russell’s iconic portraits include album covers for The Beatles and The Who, and on-tour shots of the Rolling Stones (seen here). Photo © Ethan Russell

WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW HIM
Ethan Russell has shot some of the world’s most legendary musicians, and decades later, his work lives on with the care of an attentive printer and the right paper.

ethanrussell.com

The first time Ethan Russell found himself in a room with Mick Jagger was in the London offices of Rolling Stone in 1968. He was taking portraits to accompany an interview by the writer Jonathan Cott. “Jagger walked in and I took his picture,” Russell says. “I thought I had peaked for my lifetime, never expected to do it again, and certainly had no reason to think it would happen again.”

Russell was born in Mt. Kisco, New York, raised in California, and moved to London after graduating from the University of California, Davis. Russell’s roommate taught him how to take black-and-white photographs on a Pentax Skylight 1A camera after he became inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blowup (1966), about a fictional London photographer. “I thought, well that looks fun,” he says with a laugh. “It was an explosively creative time—I was painting, I was writing, and at the center of it all was music.”

HANGING OUT WITH ROCK STARS
Russell’s brother was managing a band at the time, and he took photographs of those musicians that he would eventually show Cott on a chance encounter in London. The writer recommended him to shoot the portrait of Mick Jagger; it went so well that Rolling Stone hired him to take some portraits of John Lennon. From that point, his career as a photographer skyrocketed. 

He was hired as the official photographer for the Rolling Stones’ American Tour in 1969, and later he shot the cover of The Beatles’ 1970 album “Let It Be,” as well as The Who’s 1971 album “Who’s Next.” Over the next decade, Russell shot some of the most iconic rock-and-roll imagery of the period, capturing the likes of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton and Linda Ronstadt.

The Who album cover for the band’s fifth studio album, Who’s Next. 

Russell attributes his success as a photographer largely to chance, but he also thinks it has something to do with where he came from. “Every one of these guys was looking at America as the land of milk and honey,” he says. Moreover, he was unfamiliar. “If you see someone in your own culture, you can figure them out pretty quickly,” Russell notes. “Because I was an American, they couldn’t spot me.” 

He was often so intimidated by his subjects that he melted behind the lens. This made him an invisible presence both on stage and in the musician’s most private moments. Because he wasn’t formally trained, the only photos he took were candids. 

“It’s not a normal human activity to have your photograph taken,” Russell observes. “Since I didn’t take those posed kinds of pictures, that kind of energy isn’t in the photographs.” What is there, however, is a sense that you as the viewer, for just a frame, are hanging out with rock stars. 

An image of the Rolling Stones backstage, 1969. Photo © Ethan Russell

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DIGITAL
By the end of the 1970s, Russell had amassed a portfolio of images that would stand the test of time. The music industry was changing, and so was photography; images began to be produced rather than merely shot. “The level of images today, in terms of craft, they’re a bit like the Batman movies,” Russell says. “They’re extraordinarily well realized, but they’re not real. That’s not me.” 

Russell began experimenting with creating music videos for TV and multimedia presentations for educational initiatives. Over the years, he continued to work with imagery, but never again as a still photographer. His photographs have lived on as prints, however, in books, exhibitions and in the homes of collectors. To meet the demand for physical copies of them, he needed to find a printer who could do them justice. 

Back in the days when Russell lived in England, he worked with a lab run by a father and son who did traditional gelatin silver prints. Years later when he moved back to San Francisco, he couldn’t find a local printer who could match the quality of their analog work. “It was always a struggle,” Russell recalls. Whenever he needed a print, he says, he flew down to Los Angeles. Then, in 2011, he was introduced to Dickerman Prints, a full-service San Francisco lab founded in 1996 by Seth Dickerman, that had switched to digital processes in 2007. 

“I was nervous about it,” Russell says of trying digital prints. The first piece Dickerman produced for him was a 30 x 40-inch print of Keith Richards in rehearsal, a memorable shot. Russell was beyond pleased with the result. “As soon as I saw it,” he says, “I decided I could move away from analog printing.” He’s worked with Dickerman exclusively ever since.

The process is collaborative, and it requires a few steps. When an image is getting printed for the first time, or if the print is experimental—such as multiple images on a single sheet or a new type of paper—Russell and Dickerman do a number of tests to make sure they are happy with the final results.

“We work together, but Seth has a determination and patience that I sometimes lack,” Russell admits.

Russell is in the lab with Dickerman at least once a week, if not more. Depending on demand, Dickerman may produce a single 8 x 10-inch print for a collector in a week, or up to 60 images for an exhibition.
 
A COMMON UNDERSTANDING
Part of the reason why they work so well together is that both Russell and Dickerman began their careers in darkrooms in the late 1960s; they understand how much the medium has changed and what needs to be preserved from the analog era in digital prints. “Seth will take an image and make it better,” Russell says. “He understands the direct relationship between the digital file and the paper.”

Paper in particular is central to Dickerman’s practice. “When we were kids, there were millions of different kinds of paper, but by the 1980s, it was over, there was only Inkjet BFK Rives,” Dickerman says. The proliferation of different types of paper in the digital age, he believes, has led to a new golden age in printing. 

It has also allowed him and Russell to experiment with different ways of printing Russell’s iconic images. For a recent show of his work in Edmonton, Canada, the pair produced 15 panels measuring 4 x 8 feet that contained multiple images on a single sheet. To make them sturdy enough to be pinned to a wall without warping or being contained behind glass, Dickerman relies on Moab Entrada Rag paper (a 100 percent cotton paper that reproduces images with an impressive tonal range).  

For a recent show of his work, Russell experimented with different ways of printing his iconic images. Photo © Ethan Russell  

“Printing is an evolving set of skills,” Russell notes. “Now that I know Dickerman, I know there is a higher level to go to. I don’t need to look around. I know I’m in good hands.”

After decades of work, Russell’s taking a breather from projects, but for him and Dickerman, there’s always something in the pipeline. A gallery in Sydney is putting together a show of images of The Doors and will likely include prints of Russell’s work. It would be hard not to, given the quality.

Brienne Walsh is a writer and critic who has contributed to Rangefinder, PDN, The Village Voice, Art in America, ArtReview and Modern Painters, among others. She also has a blog, called A Brie Grows in Brooklyn.​

To read this article in the digital edition, click here.

From KCRA News: Behind the Lens with Rock Photographer Ethan Russell

CreativeLive Video Tutorial: Jeremy Cowart on Shooting Musicians with Limited Gear