Beck,
London 1997 Lithprint, black framed
Edition of 20
cm 69 x 68

Nicolas Cage,
Santa Monica
1990
Lithprint, black framed
Edition of 20
cm 69 x 68

In Corbijn's photos, his subjects seem distracted, solemn, smiling perhaps but still worn down by the burdens of their celebrity. They are pictured as serious people, caught in quiet moments, far removed from their highpowered stage personas. Given the choice, Corbijn would almost always shoot a subject outside of a studio in available light, even if it's against a plain white wall. I'm a very, very basic photographer, Corbijn says. The main strength of my pictures, I guess, is the mood and feel I get out of the people that I meet. But technically I don't think I'm very advanced. That never interested me. Corbijn eschews the label "rock photographer," he says, because it makes him sound like some groupie who runs around with a backstage pass, grabbing shots of lead singers with their arms around their latest babes. His approach is more that of the classic portrait photographer. My biggest fear always is that I'll photograph an idea rather than a person, he says. So I try to be quite sensitive to how people are.

Anton Corbijn is not at all dead when he's taking photos, writes Brian Eno in Star Trak's introduction. He's actually a bit crazy, going all over the world to take pictures of people, but then acting as though it doesn't really matter in the least sure, let's do a few pictures now we're here, but don't let it get in the way of anything. I do scout for locations a lot and I usually do have a feel of something I want, Corbijn admits. It's not like standing in front of the Eiffel Tower- or something clichŽd - but it could be some particular hedge or wall that gives you a feeling of France rather than being specific. Yes, I'm quite sensitive to that. Writes Eno: I think that's what everyone likes his respect for whatever is going on at the time, his reluctance to impose, his sense of timing. He makes it light, lets you know that your life doesn't depend on it...

...In fact, continues Eno, when Anton turns up, the mood invariably becomes funnier, more pliable. He has a way of making you feel that you wouldn't mind experimentally making an arse of yourself because he doesn't either. His life doesn't depend on it. The last few years have been a bit hard - scheduling and coordinating - it's very tiring, Corbijn admits. My work has become bigger business in the sense that I do bigger jobs and obviously, yes, I've become a little more professional - which I don't really want to be but I can't help it at some point.

Corbijn has photographed Michael Stipe, so often that he feels comfortable waking up the R.E.M. vocalist at 6:00 in the morning if the light's right for a shot. When I was young, I thought, okay, I'm going to do some music pictures like this for a while and then at 35 I'm going to do something else. But now I'm in my forties and I still enjoy it. Videos and Hollywood may call, but Corbijn knows enough to stick to his basics. I'm not going to give up music photography for a while, he says simply.

Anton Corbijn was born in Holland in 1955.
His photographs have appeared in Vogue, Rolling Stone, Us, Details and Entertainment Weekly.

Still <in> Motion, curated by Marco Puntin, Palazzo Frisacco, Tolmezzo, Udine, (Italy)
Art Cologne, Galleria LipanjePuntin and Torch Gallery,Köln, (Germany)
Museum Bochum, Bochum, (Germany)
Supermodel, Identity and Transformation, Galleria LipanjePuntin, Trieste, (Italy)
Strippinggirls (with Marlene Dumas) , S.M.A.K., Gent, (Belgium)
Richard Goodall Gallery, Manchester, (UK)
Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, (France)
Strippinggirls (with Marlene Dumas) , Theatermuseum, Amsterdam, (The Netherlands)
Groninger Museum, Groningen, (The Netherlands)
Oksnehallen, Copenhagen, (Denmark)
Torch Gallery, Amsterdam, (Holland)

1994