The legacy of Rolling Stone magazine photographer Baron Wolman
From Woodstock to Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, Baron Wolman will forever be remembered for photographing music's greatest era.
Wolman, then 30, was fated for the role after meeting 21-year-old journalist Jann Wenner in San Francisco in April 1967. Wenner had plans to form a new kind of publication entirely focused on music.
Wolman agreed to join the new editorial project, which would become Rolling Stone magazine. He became the magazine's first chief photographer and helped launch the magazine to its iconic status.
Wolman was born on June 25, 1937, in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Northwestern University, where he studied philosophy. Wolman's professional photographic career began while he was stationed with U.S. Army military intelligence in Berlin.
While in Berlin he sold his first photographic essay, images of life behind the then-new Berlin Wall. It was after this that he decided to become a photojournalist.
After his discharge from the military, he moved to California.
Wolman began working for Rolling Stone from its first issue, and continued for another three years. Because of Wolman's access to his subjects, his photographs of musicians like Joplin, The Rolling Stones, The Who and Hendrix would become the backbone of Rolling Stone's layout.
After his time at Rolling Stone, Baron worked on several other long-term projects. He learned to fly and began a series of aerial photo projects. He published two books of the images after opening his own publishing company, Squarebooks, in 1974.
"Baron Wolman: Every Picture Tells A Story, The Rolling Stone Years," published in 2011, tells the stories behind his iconic images and details his career, including the early days of the magzaine.
Wolman died on Nov. 2 of complications from Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 83.
His unique photographic style helped establish Rolling Stone magazine's early aesthetic and forever established the image of the classic rock star of the 1960s and '70s.
