Elliott Landy

b.1942
Elliott Landy, born in 1942, said that he "chose to photograph people and events that later came to be socially and culturally significant." He took pictures of the anti-Vietnam war movement and the underground music culture of New York City in 1967. Both backstage and onstage, Elliott Landy photographed rock'n'roll superstars including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, The Beatles, The Who, Chuck Berry, Joan Baez, Van Morrison, Richie Havens, Bob Dylan and The Band. In fact, Elliott Landy was the official photographer of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Some of his most iconic images are associated with Bob Dylan, having taken the cover shot for Nashville Skyline. Many other images include Dylan with his family.

Elliott Landy was responsible for photographing many pivotal events in history. He even tried to get Bobby Kennedy to intervene when police beat up a disabled demonstrator during an anti-war demonstration. Landy was shocked when he turned the film into the Associated Press and the editor looked at the pictures and told him they were not interested. He was disappointed that these pictures were not available to the public. Thus, he took his pictures to the underground press.

After getting tired of the artificiality of photographing celebrities, Elliott moved on to other inspirations and art forms, photographing his own children and travels, creating impressionist flower photographs and doing motion and kaleidoscopic photography in both still and film formats. His photographs have been published worldwide for many years in all print mediums including covers of Rolling Stone, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and album covers, calendars, and photographic book collections.

Presented in association with Raj Prem Fine Art Photography.