(Credits: Far Out / Neil Zlozower / Behind The Gallery)

From the emergence of rock ‘n’ roll as the central driver in pop culture in the 1960s, attentive photographers have documented and thus contributed to its evolution. Early on, eminent shutterbugs like Bent Rej captured stars of the British invasion, but over time, a visual accompaniment to the musical experience became increasingly important. Following the footsteps of Andy Warhol and Mick Rock in this field is Neil Zlozower, today’s featured photographer.

Zlozower, often nicknamed Zloz, is among America’s foremost living rock photographers. He emerged in the late 1970s, specialising in concert photography during rock ‘n’ roll’s heyday. Among his early gigs were classic hard rock bands, including Van Halen, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. His work soon gained attention from peers and eminent musicians for its unique preservation of the raw intensity of live performance.

One of Zlozower’s most notable collaborations was with Van Halen, with whom he developed a close relationship. This alliance allowed a fruitful and providential expansion into studio-based photography. Of Zlozower’s five published books, two consist of van Halen material: Van Halen: A Visual History: 1978-1984 and Ed by Zloz.

Zlozower’s early success soon opened doors to further on-stage and in-studio engagements. Today, the snowball continues to roll; his staggering portfolio features iconic shots of David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Jackson, Frank Zappa and many more.

In addition to his work with rock artists, Zlozower has photographed various other musical genres, including jazz, blues, and country. His portfolio features shots of artists such as B.B. King, Miles Davis, and Willie Nelson. Zlozower maintains a strong identity of bold colour and symbolism with such artists but is also receptive to differing visions and personalities.

Some artists have further immortalised Zlozower’s work on their album covers. Among his sleeve design credits are Alice Cooper’s Dragontown, Steve Vai’s Alien Love Secrets, Poison’s Open Up and Say… Ahh!, and Slipknot’s 1999 debut album.

In recognition of his contributions to the music industry, Zlozower has received several prestigious awards and honours, including the ‘Rock Photographer of the Year’ honour at the Hollywood FAME Awards in 2007. In 2018, directors Declan Maynes and Beate Maynes celebrated Zlozower’s career in the acclaimed documentary film In Your Face: The Neil Zlozower Story, which traces his career, examines his approach and features some of his greatest shots.

With a towering career of over four decades behind him, Zlozower remains a prolific force in the music industry, ensuring each new generation of performers has a top-flight photographer at its disposal. Below, we celebrate Zlozower’s career so far with a small sample of his work, including iconic shots of Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, David Bowie and more. See more on Zlozower’s website here.

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“Back in the 1980s I bought a book, The Dark Summer by Bob Carlos Clarke, and that changed pretty much immediately what I wanted to shoot. His monochrome prints of models in latex were such a stunning visual treat. The thin rubber fits like a second skin, enhancing natural physical attributes: a corset and Wonderbra all in one! 

Many models find it liberating too, in terms of posing for the camera. Turning the everyday into a nightmare/fantasy/hero/villain. It can be very stylized, but the various outfits can be as revealing as you dare, or completely covered if you wish. For example, in a catsuit zipped up to the neck, you can be extreme and extravagant in your posing, safe in the knowledge there is not going to be an accidental flash of flesh.

I am looking to try and do something a little different each time. I think that’s important in order to satisfy my own creative needs. Doing the same thing over and over would get a little boring, and I felt I had got to that point with high-key shots of black latex a while back. I aim to create something provocative, but that doesn’t mean it has to be overt. There is far more intrigue in what you don’t see over what is actually revealed. The viewer has an imagination and has the potential to project that onto the image too.

There is a fair amount of prep work in getting outfits ready for shooting. Cleaning, polishing, more polishing… it takes time. Then there’s dressing the model, with catsuits being the most challenging to get into. But over the years I have become a dab hand with gloves and stockings and I sure know how to lace up a corset!

During the shoot itself, you have to keep an eye out for bits of fluff, or stray hairs sticking to the latex clothing. The polished rubber also clearly creates a reflective surface, and lighting set-ups can often be seen in the darker-pigment garments. Modifiers are certainly identifiable and occasionally even the photographer – camera in hand – can be glimpsed.

I prefer the studio environment. Setting a background, adding props and the flexibility of controllable lighting, as well as an adjustable room temperature, makes for a very productive session. External location shoots not only rely on our very changeable weather cooperating, but also an element of ‘crowd control’ as a latex-clad dominatrix in eight-inch heels is certain to draw attention! 

The first Nikons I ever had in my hands were FM and F3 film cameras. These days, I stick with a D3 and D3x DSLRs, with a set of primes: 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.4 and a 105mm f/2.8. There is also the Holy Trinity of zooms: 14-24mm, 24-70mm and the 70-200mm – all f/2.8, of course. It would be reasonable to say that the 24-70mm sees the most action, but the 14-24mm can create wonderful exaggerated frames, shot either from on high looking down, or right at ground level aiming up a heel and leg”. 

About Andrew Macdonald

Andrew Macdonald runs Killer Heels Photography and won the Best Photographer category at the UK Fetish awards for the third time in 2023. See more of his work on Facebook, Instagram and X.

Lydia Goldblatt describes her book Fugue as a “story about mothering and losing a mother, intimacy and distance, told through photographs and writing”. It is a companion volume, in some ways, to an earlier project, Still Here, about the unsettled, intense landscape of love and loss generated by her father’s death. “The cultural silence around these emotions,” Goldblatt writes, by way of introduction, “the difficulty of navigating and giving voice to them, has made me want to suffuse them with colour and light.”

The pictures in Fugue were made over four years, beginning in 2020. The world of some of them is circumscribed by lockdown, life narrowing to the bubble of family. The photographer’s young daughters are insistently present in the pictures, climbing and clinging and needing notice. “Abundant” is her word for them. Her mother is already an absence; the words in the book chart not only her loss but also the responsibility of clearing and decanting her London home.

Goldblatt and her partner, as here, seem to exist halfway between those two states; wearied by care and by reflection, not as corporeal as their children. When Goldblatt first became a mother, a few years earlier, she was suddenly unable to take pictures at all, caring was “so much that it was too much”. It was only when her mother died that she wanted to pick up a camera again, to find a visual language honest to “feelings of claustrophobia and rage as much as intimacy and love”. She worked on medium-format film, often waiting appropriate months for those images and those emotions to be processed. Fugue indicates both a brief snatch of musical harmony, and in psychiatry, a sudden loss of awareness of identity. Both meanings seem fitting for the forthcoming exhibition of Goldblatt’s pictures and the subsequent book.

• Fugue is published by Gost (£45) in June. An exhibition of the photographs, with Robert Morat Galerie, will be on display at Photo London 2024, Somerset House, 16-19 May