What It Was Like to Shoot The Rolling Stones

Moving from South Africa to New York — via London, where the only downside was the weather, he says — saw multi-platform artist Norman Seeff undergo a radical career change. Having been an emergency doctor in Apartheid-era Soweto, when he found himself in New York in the early 70s he began pursuing photography.

At downtown counterculture bar Max’s Kansas City Seeff would rub shoulders with the likes of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe and would photograph them too. "It was horrible for a year and a half because I got no work, and then I met a man who became my mentor. The artwork for my first album cover shoot — Robbie Robertson and The Band — became hugely successful. Suddenly I was the rock photographer in New York who got work."

As creative director at United Artists Records in LA for two years, Seeff was responsible for some of the era’s most seminal album covers, creating artwork for the likes of Ike & Tina Turner, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor.

One night in the early 1970s, Seeff shot The Rolling Stones. Then at the height of fame, the band were releasing Exile on Main Street, their first record via their own label. Seeff was responsible for the photography and art direction.

"I did about three sessions with The Rolling Stones. At that point my career had taken off in New York and I’d been asked to fly to LA to become creative director of a record company called United Artists. I was at United Artists when I got a call from The Stones’ management asking me to do the Exile on Main Street album, and they wanted me on both sides — so doing the photography and the design."

"We started the shoot at midnight, and I think The Rolling Stones had been in the studio all day. We’d been drinking gallons of cheap wine that Mick Jagger hated when he came. He said ‘great session, terrible wine’. We were all a little stoned by the time they arrived, but I have to say that Keith was more stoned than we were."

"They asked me to come back and I hung out with them at the house and we did a couple of the other sessions, just more Keith against a grey background — it needed nothing, it’s just such an iconic rock and roll shot. I found Mick incredibly present — this duality of a genuine creativity, but at the same time that ability to be responsible for delivering whatever needs to be delivered."