Anton Corbijn: The Early Years, 1955–1979
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Anton Corbijn’s career begins with a listener. Before the films, sleeves and exhibitions, there was a teenager trying to get closer to music. Born in Strijen in the Netherlands in 1955, he began taking concert photographs in 1972 with his father’s camera. He subsequently moved towards portraits and relocated to London in 1979. These are the essential coordinates of his early development. (2b Management)
Music as a way out
In his interview with Alain Elkann, Corbijn describes a Protestant household in which his father, grandfather and other relatives were preachers. He remembers music as an opening into a more expansive world. At seventeen, photographing a concert gave him a practical reason to approach the stage; publication of a few photographs made that private enthusiasm feel like a possible vocation. (Alain Elkann Interviews)
That origin matters to how we read the later work. A fan’s photograph can have two ambitions: to preserve what happened and to make the viewer feel why it mattered. Corbijn’s career invites us to keep both in mind. Recognition is only the beginning of a portrait. The more interesting question is whether the image can carry some of the imaginative force that drew the photographer towards the person in the first place.
From performance to portrait
The distinction between a concert photograph and a portrait is fundamental. During a performance, the photographer responds to lighting, movement and a stage arrangement largely determined by others. In a portrait sitting, distance, location, posture and background can become active decisions. A musician can be separated from the usual signs of the job: microphone, guitar, spotlight, cheering crowd.
Corbijn explains this preference in the Louisiana Channel interview: he wants to approach musicians as people, and discusses working with simple equipment and deliberate limitations. His recollection of Brian Eno’s advice is especially revealing: reduce the available options and make the remaining ones work harder. (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art)
For a reader looking back at the early pictures, the useful question is therefore not simply whether they already look like the famous later ones. Ask what the photographer is choosing to leave out. Removing the apparatus of performance can make an image less descriptive of a profession but more suggestive of a personality.
Why London mattered
In a later interview about Control, Corbijn identified Joy Division as a catalyst for moving to Britain. He recalled responding to the weight and atmosphere of their music before he could fully understand the words. (Focus Features) This is an unusually direct explanation of the relationship between sound and image in his work: emotional recognition did not depend on a literal translation of lyrics.
It also offers a productive way into the photographs. Rather than asking which line of a song an image illustrates, ask what kind of space the music seems to occupy. Is it crowded or isolated? Is a person confronting the viewer or withdrawing? Does the setting feel provisional, severe, theatrical or ordinary? Those questions remain useful throughout this collection.
Begin with his own account
The Louisiana Museum interview provides an excellent first encounter with Corbijn as a speaker. Listen for the relationship between shyness, access, concentration and invention. The restrained working method he describes should not be confused with a lack of ambition: the small number of decisions makes each decision carry more weight.