ROCKANDROLLGALLERY.COM

Photographer Ross Halfin, whose celebrated work has graced numerous album jackets, tour books and magazine covers for parts of four decades, has turned an early love for music into a life-long passion for music photography.

As a youngster, Halfin attended school in London, but not for long. An rabid interest in following his favorite musicians around England far outweighed his desire for further classroom education.

"Originally I was a big fan of The Who," says Ross. "I used to go and see them all the time, and I always wanted to take pictures of them. I was at art college and I took up photography there just to figure out how to work a camera. From there I dropped out of school and became a photographer. I used to just go to all the shows around London and just shoot whoever was on."

Halfin was soon on staff at the prestigious music paper Sounds, and his early photos of such 70s heavyweights as AC/DC, Blondie and Rush established his name at the head of U.K.-based photographers. A stint with British metal bible Kerrang!, where his shots of the likes of Iron Maiden and Def Leppard are now legendary, followed in the early 1980s.

"Mike McReady from Pearl Jam told me early on that he used to cut my pictures of Iron Maiden and Def Leppard out when he was at school and put them on his bedroom wall," recalls Ross with a laugh. "A lot of the bands I've worked for came about through cultivating relationships. I did Metallica for the mid-80s up through the mid-90s. I'm probably the person with all of that."

Ross Halfin has recently done photo sessions with The Smashing Pumpkins and Ozzy Osbourne, among many others. "I'm putting together a tour book for The Who for this upcoming Summer tour," he says, and I've also just finished a book on The Who called "The Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band in the World" which is a compilation of photographs for which Pete Townshend and their manager Bill Curbishley have both done introductions."

Ross has also established himself as one of the privileged few who get to see the music business from all sides, and his all-access career has resulted in numerous appearances on VH1's acclaimed "Behind The Music" series, where he's shared his recollections of past tours and photo shoots with the likes of Metallica, Def Leppard, Black Crowes, Bon Jovi, and Poison, to name just a few.