The Lasting Impact of Bob Marley

Sometimes photographers have to work long hours for days on end just to get a handful of interesting images. And sometimes all it takes is a little quality time with a generous subject.
     In 1976, Time magazine sent photojournalist David Burnett to Jamaica to work on a story about reggae music, which was becoming a popular addition to radio play lists in the U.S. Burnett started his work by shooting a number of musicians around Ocho Rios, on the island’s north coast. “They all told me that if I wanted to get the story right, I had to go see Bob Marley,” says Burnett. Traveling with a writer, Burnett ended up spending a single afternoon with Marley at his home in Kingston.
     Thirty-three years later, the images he shot that day, combined with a number of photographs he took while following Marley’s Exodus tour in Europe in 1977, have been collected in a book, Soul Rebel: An Intimate Portrait of Bob Marley (Insight Editions, $39.95). The work was also featured earlier this year in an exhibition at the Govinda Gallery in Washington, D.C.

     

“I never really thought about doing a book, because I’d spent such a short amount of time with Bob,” says Burnett. He changed his mind after showing his Marley images to Chris Murray, owner of the Govinda Gallery. “He was so excited to see this collection of unknown Marley images,” recalls Burnett, “and he said, ‘This is a book.’”
      Burnett, who launched his career by covering the Vietnam War, was living in Miami in the mid-’70s when Arnold Drapkin, the photo director of Time magazine, called with reggae assignment. Burnett was somewhat perplexed. “If there was anyone more clueless about reggae than me, it was Drapkin,” he says. “But I’ve never been one to let ignorance keep me from a good story.”
      Most of the material in the new book was made during the single afternoon that Burnett spent with Marley in Jamaica. “Bob was great,” he says. “I was impressed at how full of wisdom this guy was at the age of 30. He was only a year older than me, yet he seemed to understand people and the world so much better than me.”
    

Burnett had three Nikon bodies with various lenses, along with a single Leica. He also carried a strip camera that he had customized by replacing the shutter with a couple of pieces of foil. “I had Bob run back and forth in front of me while I wound the film past the slit opening,” he recalls. The resulting images capture a blur of action—an apt metaphor for the life of a famous entertainer.
    What made the photo session a success was the complete access he was allowed with Marley--the intimacy and lack of artifice is stunning to modern eyes. “This was a time when you could shoot a celebrity without having three publicists in the room trying to justify their jobs by telling the photographer what to shoot and what not to shoot,” says Burnett.
    Burnett’s pictures from the 1977 Exodus tour, mostly color, were taken over a three-day span during an assignment for Rolling Stone magazine. After that, the work was largely forgotten, though some of the images that had been published were later pirated on posters and T-shirts. Burnett says that he began to understand the lasting impact of his work while visiting is daughter in college. One of her friends had a Marley poster, featuring a picture he had made, hanging in her dorm room. “My daughter was so stoked about that,” he says, “and it was a watershed moment for me.”

Comments

[Ginger Thomas]

I recently went on tour with a reggae artist, I am still wondering what to do with my photos. This blog gives me inspiration in that even if I am not able to find a way to showcase the work I did at this moment, that possibly later I will find a way to bring meaning to my work. Like David Burnett I hope to someday see my photos hanging on the walls of my children's dorm room, or that of their friends. I am a big Bob Marley fan, this summer I actually received the opportunity to shoot photos of his brother Damion Marley, I am now interested in looking for ways I can bring attention to these photos.

Thanks,

Ginger Thomas