Elliott Landy is a photographer best known for his iconic photographs of rock musicians. A 1959 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science

Bronx High School of Science

The Bronx High School of Science is a specialized New York City public high school often considered the premier science magnet school in the United States. Founded in 1938, it is now located in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx...

, ten years later he was the official photographer of the 1969 Woodstock Festival

Woodstock Festival

Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...

. His photographs have appeared on the covers of such magazines as Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

, LIFE, and The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...

. Landy's portraits have also graced the covers of many of the best known albums of the era, including such classics as Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

's Nashville Skyline

Nashville Skyline

Nashville Skyline is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's ninth studio album, released by Columbia Records in April 1969.The album marked a dramatic departure for Dylan, previously known for his groundbreaking, poetic folk music and rock and roll...

, Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

's Moondance

Moondance

Moondance is the third solo album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released on Warner Bros. Records on 28 February 1970 and peaked at #29 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart....

, and The Band

The Band

The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...

's second album, eponymously titled The Band

The Band (album)

- Bonus Track listing from 2000 re-release :All songs by Robbie Robertson unless otherwise noted. The 2000 re-release has also been packaged as a double CD with The Band's debut album Music from Big Pink.- Personnel :...

.

From 1967 to 1969, Landy worked with underground newspapers in New York City photographing anti-Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 demonstrations and also rock n' roll concerts at the Fillmore East

Fillmore East

The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...

 and Anderson Theaters. Amongst others, he photographed Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...

, Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

, and Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison

James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...

. He has published several collections of his work.

In the spring of 2008 Landy was the Larry Berk Artist-in-Residence at Ulster County Community College

Ulster County Community College

SUNY Ulster is a public two-year college supported by Ulster County, New York and the State University of New York. The main campus is located in Stone Ridge, New York...

.

Landy has lived in Woodstock, New York

Woodstock, New York

Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...

, since the mid-1960s.

External links

• Elliott Landy's classic photos of The Band
• Slate article & gallery of photos
• Elliott Landy's Woodstock Vision - multimedia CD-ROM of Landy's work