This years edition of Uppsala Guitar Festival had the honur to present world famous Rock n’ Roll Photographer Henry Diltz. During the festival visitors could either take a walk in the gallery presenting some of Diltz best pictures or have a seat during one of the slideshows where Diltz himself told the stories behind the pictures. However we at Uppsalanyheter wondered; Who is the man behind the camera?

Henry Diltz was born in Kansas City in 1938 with both his parents working for the american airline TWA. His mother as a stewardess and his father as a pilot. Diltz was what you would call for an airplane baby. However at the age of six, Diltz lost his father.

- When the World War II started my father joined the army air-corps and then he was killed, not in the war, but when testing airplanes, he died in -44.

Henry gives lectures in Uppsala international guitar festival. (Photo: Peter Bohlin)

Diltz mother was left as a widow with two young boys, Diltz himself and his little brother.

- She knew that we needed a father so she remarried a guy who was then in the government state department.

Soon after, in -47 right when the war had ended, Diltz found himself moving along with his family to Tokyo, Japan. Then during the following years the family moved back to the states, then to Bangkok - Thailand, then back to the states once more before finally ending in Munich - Germany, where Diltz went to college.

”I didn’t play in school, I just taught myself”

Diltz was introduced to photography through music by photographing his friends, the people constantly surrounding him. To music, Diltz however was introduced by his parents.

- Like my parents did when I was a little boy, I listened to the radio. My mother played the piano and when I was a young boy I played the harmonica. Then in High School I learned how to play the clarinet, I didn’t take lessons I just learned you know like I didn’t play in school, I just taught myself.

Henrys first music related photo was of Stephen Stills (Photo: Henry Diltz) 

In college Diltz learned how to play the five strings banjo and means that he always had a little bit of music in his DNA, just from his parents.

- I have always loved music. I think music is a big part of life you know and it’s just so spontaneously, you just soak it up.

”The Green Sleeves Coffeehouse”

In the early 60’s Diltz were introduced to the magic of Coffeehouses. They were called The Coffeehouse and was a place were you could go in with your guitar and play.

- I went to a university on Hawaii and there it was a Coffeehouse called ’The Green Sleeves Coffeehouse’that’s an english folksong and I had my banjo and I went down and played. Then I started going every night and play.

Diltz explains that it was through this kind of places that you met new friends and with them you worked up a duo or a trio before you eventually formed a group.

The Modern Folk Quartet

In -62 Diltz came to Los Angeles and a year later he met one of his oldest friends Stephen Stills.

- We put a folksinging group together in Hawaii and we came over to California to get a record deal and we played in the club, that same club ’The Troubadour’that I’ve mentioned (during the slideshow - editors note) and we played there and we sang four part harmony. Which not so many folk groups did, three part harmony a lot, but not so much four part and so we were a quite of big hit right away.
 

Henry gets interwieved by Swedish television. (Photo: Morgan Jansson)

Diltz together with his group managed to score a record deal and a manager as well as an agent right away due to the fact that they were indeed really good and talented.

- We put this all together in Hawaii and before that nobody had ever heard us in L.A. When we came to L.A. we were already really good. So right away we were very successful and then we started recording and playing and singing the whole time.

The group called themselves ’The Modern Folk Quartet’a name they had borrowed from a modern jazz quartet which already existed, although most of the time they just used the initials MFQ.

- We did two albums on Warner Bros Records and then we did an independent album and then we did Japanese albums, five or six albums in Japan in the 80-s and 90-s so we have about nine albums now.

Henry takes a selfie with his friends John and Linda. (Photo: Henry Diltz)

Henry Diltz have two children, his daughter born in -77 and his son in -85.

- My son is 29 and he is a heavy metal bass player. With tattoos you know, he’s totally tattooed and he plays all that heavy metal stuff, and he loves it. He is a great kid. And my daughter is now a nurse in Austin Texas and she has three little boys. So I have three little Texas Ranchers, wich I love.

Would you have given your children the same permission now to travel around the world and do what you did, like your parents gave the permission to you back then?

- Yeah I mean when our children were young, we were very careful you know cause there were so many stories of weird people; ’people abducting children’ you hear about that and you don’t want your children to be that, so we were always very careful about them. My wife was very paranoid about that. We never let our children walk to the end of the street alone. When I was a little boy I walked to school every day and it was like fifteen-twenty minutes away from home. It was a long way and I walked to school and I walked home after. Now you never do that, our children would never go alone, we drove them. It was a little to far to walk anyway, but it is different now. It is more complex. I trust the world and I trust my children, they are grown ups so I think yeah I would have.

Klaus Pontvik the president of Uppsala International Guitar festival and Henry Diltz (Photo: Morgan Jansson)

Diltz means that at some point you have to let go, even though you do worry about it, because it is in our nature to do so. To worry about the state of the world. However as Diltz thinks of himself as a kind of philosopher and a spiritual thinker, always questioning what am I? What is life? He do believe that the world will get better.

- We are here to learn, we are here to learn what it is really about. To realize our true nature. To be self realized and maybe… I mean personally I think we live many times and we learn lessons each life time until we have finally learned it all. I think life is amazing. It is an amazing experience. It’s an adventure.

One of Henrys pictures from Woodstock. (Photo: Henry Diltz)

”For me photography was all about how you see the framing’’

Likewise as the world has changed, the camera has ben able to develop meanwhile such as the photographing part as well. When Diltz started photographing it was by film. Then you had to buy the film, pay for the processing, cameras and lenses.

- I had five different lenses from wide angle to 500mm, I didn’t use the zoom lenses cause I wanted to open up f.1.8-2 and the zoom lenses was 4-5-6. So I would put on a different lens if I wanted to be closer, further or what ever and that was part of the fun of photography. For me photography was all about how you see the framing.

Diltz decides to demonstrate this by moving his hand formed as a frame by his fingers closer and further away while saying:

- Because you have a choice. Is that the picture or is that the picture?

”I would never go digital”

 
Diltz worked by all the golden rules while being a photographer who took photos only by film. He used the spot meter to take a reading of the surrounding light, then he would set the camera and take the picture, it took a little bit more time compared with the short amount of time it takes to do likewise with a digital camera today.

- At first in the early 2000 I said 'I would never go digital, I'm a film guy', you know, for forty years I had been a film guy and then I picked up my friends cameras, that were digital and I said 'Oh my God, this thing sets the light reading automatically and it focuses automatically, this is kind of cool'.

Henry has moved on to digital, and take at least 200 pictures every day. (Photo: Peter Bohlin)

But it was not only the automatic features that made Diltz love the digital camera. It was also the way that you delivered the prints.

- I realized that the great thing about digital is how you deliver the prints later. Because when you shoot film you have to make proof sheets, you have to make prints, you have to deliver all that. With digital it's so fast. The same day you take the pictures you can make a disc and give away the pictures.

"I didn't ever want to bother anybody"

In the 60's there were not that many photographers, people did not think of how they looked like and you were able to shoot a whole concert, rather than today when you shoot three songs and that's it. They don't want you to be in the way and they want to control it all.

- I mean I got to take the pictures I took because they were friends of mine. I was just there in the backyard in somebody's house just hanging out, just taking pictures. And I didn't ever want to bother anybody, I didn't want to make them feel uncomfortable.

Henry is giving an open hearted interwiev to Anna Westin. (Photo: Peter Bohlin)

One time Diltz was asked to shoot a Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert. He was ordered to go into the dressing rooms and photograph. But when you do stuff like that, when you walk into a room carrying a big heavy camera of course everybody stops what they are doing. Therefor Diltz would always put the camera down and remain set until everybody was back doing what they did before, forgetting that Diltz was even there.

- I just put my cameras down and I just sat on the couch and then pretty soon everybody starts talking. They forget you're there and then I can quietly start to take pictures you know. Because you don't just start marching in there and begin clicking away, because then they are going to say 'hey okay that's enough'.

"I'm the Jane Goodall of Rock n' Roll photography"

Diltz took the pictures he took for himself and for no one else. To him the pictures never became assignments nor jobs. He was just a friend looking and taking pictures.

- Do you know who Jane Goodall is? She studied the chimpanzees right? Of course she would sit there and make notes but not interact. Because if she interacts then it's ruined, it's not natural. Therefor she wanted to be very quiet and just observe and so do I feel sometimes, I'm the Jane Goodall of Rock n' Roll photography.

Janne Shaffer, one of the most famous guitarplayers in Sweden, with Henry at Uppsala International Guitar festival. (Photo: Morgan Jansson)

If Diltz would have walked in right away in the dressing rooms before the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert he would have forced a reaction that was not anything near normal.

- I want to photograph what's happening, I don't want to make it happen and I don't want to force it to happen. Because then it's not real. There's photographers like that, in the studio, I mean they create every photo, none of it its natural: 'here we want you to put this hat on and you know put this lip stick on and stand here and go like this and go like this' they totally create everything in the photo. I’m the opposite, I don’t want create anything I want to see true life.

You don’t want to create, you want to capture?

- Exactly. It’s very different and equally valid you know, I mean those people take great and very interesting pictures, but that’s not my style. I’m a documentary guy.

Klaus Pontvik, president of Uppsala International Guitar festival, Henry and Peter Egardt, the Governor of Uppsala. (Photo: Morgan Jansson)

Is there anyone that you want to take a picture of, but you have not really gotten the chance to or missed out on it?

- Yes, yes there is yes. I would have loved to have taken a picture of John Lennon. I didn’t ever photograph The Beatles as a whole group. I just took photos of Paul, Ringo and George. I love him and his music, I think that he was an amazing person, I wished that I would have taken his picture, but otherwise I mean no not really. I am happy with what I’ve done and what I’ve seen, the pictures I’ve taken.

- Some people ask me ’what’s your favorite picture?’and I say you know ’every picture is a part of my life, I was there, every picture is a real event that I was at’so it’s hard to pick the favorite. They are all meaningful.

The Beatles is one of the most earth changing musical groups to Diltz himself, he believes that they will be remembered for ever and can be compared to, as the Mozart of our time. They changed not only Diltz’s music, but music itself.

- I was a musician and me and my group we saw The Beatles and we said ’Oh that’s what we want to do, joyful music’ and we went out and we got an electric bass and tried to copy, not copy the songs, but tried to copy that feeling. Like joyful sort of beautiful stuff and they influenced everybody tremendously.

Every photo have their own story. (Photo: Morgan Jansson)

How was the stars like then, lets say Jimi Hendrix for an example?

- Ah Jimi Hendrix, he was very quiet almost like a little boy I thought, very quiet very simple. He wasn't shy though he was relaxed and he was in the moment and he had this fantastic talent and that was sort of enough. Jim Morrison was very quiet, Eric Clapton was painfully shy and sometimes these really great artists, the way they meet the world is through their talent and they sort of compensate for it you know what I mean, that’s their language. They don’t express themselves with a bunch of words, they express themselves through their instruments. So they are kind of quiet, kind of simple. I’m not saying Jim Morrison was a simple guy, he had a lot going on in his head, but he was very quiet. He was an observer as he liked to watch, learn and see.

One of the favourite photos, Keith & Ron Wood in the plane. (Photo: Morgan Jansson)

Do you think that you can compare Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison to a musician today?

- It’s a hard question, I think it got more complicated and it’s like maybe once every generation some kind of new energy comes along and I think we haven’t seen what that new thing is yet. A lot of people is sort of imitating what already happened and there’s nothing new really, but that will happen of course, I mean there was an Elvis Presley, there were The Beatles and there is going to be something like that that’s going to come along at some point.

- I mean who are the stars now? Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, you know what I mean, what is that? It isn’t fantastic original creative music is it? It’s just a sort of an imitation. It’s interesting, but it’s nothing earth shattering it’s not like when The Beatles came along.

”Because it was brand new”

- It is more complicated now, it’s more difficult because when I was doing photos there weren’t a lot of photographers it was kind of a new thing. So was the sing/songwriter thing, it was kind of new. Once I asked Jackson Brown on the phone, we were talking about something and I said; ’Why do you think the 60’s were so great? And when I say this I mean the late 60’s early 70’s. Because that was during the flowering time and he said; ’Because it was brand new’ We were doing it for the first time, we were the first generation of these sort of singer/songwriters sort of new freedom generation.

Henry Diltz on his Photo Exhibition "Backstage Legend" in Uppsala International Guitar festival in Sweden. (Photo: Peter Bohlin)

But how could anyone become like you?

- When kids come up to me and say ’I want to do what you do’ I say ’Well first of all photograph all your friends, because that’s good practice. If you have a lunch and are going out somewhere in the park or whatever take hundreds of pictures of them and the other thing is to make friends with new young groups and offer you to take pictures for free for them, you don’t have to wait for a job. Just say: ’let me go to your rehearsal, let me go to your soundcheck, let me go and take pictures of you guys’.

Henry is very generous to share his experience as a photographer to anyone, here with Uppsalanyheters journalist and photographer Anna Westin. (Photo: Peter Bohlin)

If you’re lucky they will get famous and you will have these young first photos. And nowadays it’s not even expensive. Once you have a camera and a digital chip, it’s totally free right.

- I was in a really good place. I was in Laurel Canyon, I was in Los Angeles and I was shooting these groups before they were famous, before they even recorded sometimes. I’ve photographed Crosby, Still & Nash before they made their first album, The Eagles before they made their first album, Buffalo Springfield before they made their first album. Cause they were all friends of mine. Then they made their albums and they became famous.

- Lucky for me all the people I photographed became famous.

No Henry, it was lucky for them and for us, that you were there and were able to capture these moments.

Thank you for that.