‘Blonde on Blonde’ Photographer Jerry Schatzberg Shares Rare Dylan Photos
On a freezing cold day in the winter of 1966, photographer Jerry Schatzberg and Bob Dylan drove over to the far West Side of Manhattan to shoot some photos for the cover of his new album Blonde on Blonde. They wound up near a brick building right off the West Side Highway and shot for about 30 minutes until Schatzberg’s hand’s were shivering and creating blurry images. “We shot a lot of sharp ones that day,” says Schatzberg. “I was delighted he picked a blurry one for the cover. If I had made the final choice I don’t think I would have sent it because I didn’t think the record company was that clever.”
The Blonde on Blonde cover is the most famous Dylan photo that Schatzberg shot, but it was just one of many brilliant images he created throughout the course of their friendship. Daniel Kramer, Don Hunstein and Elliott Landy have received significantly more recognition than Schatzberg for their images of Dylan in the Sixties, but that’s finally starting to change with the release of Schatzberg’s new photo book Dylan by Schatzberg. It reveals that his work with Dylan goes way beyond the Blonde on Blonde cover, covering everything from the Highway 61 Revisited recording sessions to his earliest electric concerts with future members of the Band. We spoke with Schatzberg (who remains incredibly sharp and lucid at age 91) about 14 incredible photos from the book.
