Anton Corbijn and U2: Landscape, Identity and Reinvention
The collection · Timeline · Video directory · Sources
MODE UNKNOWN · ANTON CORBIJN · COMPANION GUIDE
Browse all chapters · chronological order
Corbijn’s relationship with U2 provides a second major route through his career. It is particularly useful alongside Depeche Mode because it shows how a recognisable photographic sensibility can serve different musical identities. Similar tools do not necessarily produce the same imaginative world.
The Joshua Tree and the travelling photograph
Steve Averill’s account of The Joshua Tree shoot gives a grounded view of an event that has become part of rock mythology. The travelling group included Corbijn, assistants, the band, a stylist and Averill as art director. Corbijn spotted a solitary tree and stopped the bus. Averill also explains the mirror visible at the edge of an inner-sleeve photograph: it had been brought along for practical use between shots. (Steve Averill Design)
This detail is valuable precisely because it is practical. An image now encountered as an icon was made by people working in a place, carrying equipment, dealing with weather and making decisions. Remembering that material situation does not reduce the photograph’s power. It makes the achievement more tangible.
Corbijn has described the value of working around sunset and the concentration encouraged by a limited number of film exposures. (GQ) These observations help explain a working attitude, but they should not be turned into a universal recipe for every picture in his career.
Landscape as a participant
In the desert imagery, the setting is not interchangeable scenery. It establishes a scale against which the band appears. The viewer can read the relation between figures and land as expansive, exposed or searching. The photograph invites the music to inhabit an imagined geography.
This is an interpretation of the visual relationship rather than a claim about the private intentions of every participant. Its usefulness lies in directing attention to composition. How much of the frame is given to the people? What do the horizon and empty space do? Does the group appear to possess the landscape or to be passing through it?
The distinction between photograph and sleeve remains important here. Averill’s role in the visual presentation belongs in the account alongside Corbijn’s photographic authorship. A credit-aware history is more illuminating than the idea that an album’s entire appearance sprang fully formed from a single camera.
The recurring subject
A long relationship creates a different kind of portrait archive from a one-off encounter. Familiarity can make a new idea possible because the subject has already experienced the photographer’s way of working. It can also produce a challenge: how does the next picture avoid becoming an imitation of the last successful one?
Corbijn’s description of photographing the fathers of U2’s members in performance poses offers an instructive answer. He used the family relationship to bring different generations into one concept. (The Talks) The idea shifts attention away from the familiar celebrity face towards resemblance, time and the formation of identity.
How to compare U2 and Depeche Mode
Put a landscape-led U2 photograph beside a Depeche Mode image organised around costume or a symbolic object. Rather than asking which is more authentic, compare the role of the setting. One may propose a geographical world; the other may establish a theatrical situation. Both can invite the viewer beyond straightforward identification.
The broader lesson is that Corbijn’s signature is not reducible to black and white. It lies in the kind of relationship an image sets up between a person, a surrounding space and the viewer. The specific terms of that relationship can change considerably from one collaborator to another.
For a closer look at the original shoot, begin with Averill’s illustrated account. It is especially helpful for separating the making of an image from the mythology that later surrounds it. (Steve Averill Design)