Photographer: Anton Corbijn

Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer, music video and film director. He was born in the Netherlands on the 20th May 1955, and began his career in 1983.
Corbijn has photographed many musicians over his time, his most famous being U2. Other stars he has photographed include Johnny Depp, Morrissey, Depeche Mode, Artic Monkeys, Kurt Cobain, Keith Richards, Bee Gee's, Johnny Cash, Steven Spielberg, Metallica and Clint Eastwood.



This photograph was taken for U2's album "The Joshua Tree" released in 1991. It was taken in Death Valley, USA, in the december of 1986. It is amongst one of the most well known images of U2 Corbijn ever took. He went on to photograph more album covers and magazine images for U2 and also Bono respectively. The composition of the image is fairly unusual as the band is squashed together in one corner looking out over the desert, whereas the audience can see the desert and environment behind them. Corbijn used a panoramic camera to make the most of the amazing surroundings; "man and environemt, the Irish in America".
The picture below is a photograph of Bono taken in Miami 1996. Corbijn is emphasising the "bad-ass" look that Bono naturally has, although the cigarette is a massive cliche, it does help to emphasise this. I think that it is a very strong image of Bono because of the stance and composition. He has been placed centre stage of the photograph and the way he is looking out of the corner of his eye is quite threatening.



Corbijn has a unique approach to photographing bands, as he likes to stray from the norm and make them appear to be more natural and not to "stiff". Some examples:

Massive Attack - London, 1998.



U2 and Greenday (Bono and Billy Joe)



Depeche Mode - Marrakech, 1996.



Looking over these photos I wouldn't have guessed that they were in bands together (excluding example 2). The way they have been photographed is different to what you would expect from a band photo, as normally they would be stood in a line with their hands in their pockets. Corbijn's images caught my attention because he tends to "wash" all of his images in a single colour; on his website (www.corbijn.co.uk) his portfolio is separated into colour sections (black, brown, blue and colour). All of the images have different types of backgrounds that Corbijn discovered with the bands and decided to try different shots and see if he could get a good shot.