Daniel Kramer 1932-2024
Bob Dylan was fortunate in the photographers who recorded his progress from his arrival in New York in January 1961 to his motorcycle accident in Woodstock in July 1966. John Cohen, a member of the New Lost City Ramblers, and the Village Voice staffer Fred W. McDarrah chronicled his early days in Greenwich Village. Richard Avedon caught him on the New York waterfront in 1963. Jim Marshall was at Newport and in San Francisco when Dylan hung out with the Beat poets. Don Hunstein took the Freewheelin’ cover shot on Jones Street and was there for the “Like a Rolling Stone” session, as was W. Eugene Smith. Jerry Schatzberg caught the amphetamine Dylan of early 1966 in formal portraits and took the Blonde on Blonde cover. Barry Feinstein was in the limos and the dressing rooms on the European tour that summer, present as Dylan spent time with John Lennon and Françoise Hardy.
But I’m probably not the only one who has a special fondness for the photos taken in 1964-65 by Daniel Kramer, who has died aged 91. Brooklyn-born, the young Kramer worked as an assistant to Diane Arbus and Philippe Halsman. He had just set up his own studio and knew little about Dylan when he first saw him on TV early in 1964 but then spent six months petitioning Albert Grossman to allow him access. The first session, at Grossman’s house in Woodstock that August, established a rapport between the photographer and the singer, and there would be many more encounters over the following 12 months.
Kramer photographed Dylan being swept off his feet — quite literally — by Joan Baez at a post-concert party, cheerfully (and top-hattedly) signing photographs for fans in Philadelphia, and relaxing by playing pool and pinball and (see the photo above) reading the NY Herald Tribune, again at Grossman’s house, with Sally Grossman, who has just come in from swimming, at the edge of the shot. She was also featured on the front of Bringing It All Back Home, the first of Kramer’s two great narrative cover photos (the other being Highway 61 Revisited). And he was there in Columbia’s Studio A as Dylan rewrote and recorded “Positively 4th Street”, framed by a forest of microphone booms and music stands.
In 1967 Kramer published a book of his work with Dylan, adding a commentary. His words and pictures were, as Michael Gray observes in his Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, “recurrently revealing but never prurient or obtrusive… respectful but clear-sighted.” As well as their observational and technical qualities, there was a humanity in Kramer’s photographs that gave us Dylan from a very special perspective.
* Daniel Kramer’s photographs of Dylan, along with those of Barry Feinstein and Jim Marshall, are in Early Dylan, published in the UK by Pavilion Books in 1999, and in Bob Dylan: A Year and a Day, published by Taschen in 2018.
thebluemoment.com 
Thank you for an excellent piece on Bob Dylan and the many photographers who captured him in iconic images. Mention should also be made of Elliott Landy who also photographed Dylan and the Band during their ‘Woodstock years’ and who was also responsible for the Nashville Skyline album photo.
Thanks, Richard, very warm piece on Daniel Kramer. Appreciate you. ZS
Great post by Richard Williams – as always.
Dear Richard,
thank you for your texts, I don’t want to miss a single one!!
In the first paragraph of this one I waited for Elliott Landy to be
mentioned as well.
We had a sweet moment with him at the premiere of my documentary of Karl
Berger. The film opened the Woodstock film festival in 2019. We all had
first row seats and I thought it would be nice to get a photo of this
special moment. I asked a random bystander – an older gentleman – if he
could be so kind as to take our picture. I specifically asked him if he
was familiar with an iPhone. Karl and Ingrid chuckled, I had no clue
what amused them.
Dutifully he took our picture, the attached group picture shows from
left to right: Marilyn Crispell, myself, director Julian Benedikt,
Ingrid Sertso (Karl’s wife) and the late Karl Berger.
Later they told me who just took our picture. 🙂
Elliott was totally wonderful, kind, super friendly, one of these
amazingly open Americans we German’s admire so much.
I thought you might enjoy this little story.
Best wishes from Munich,
Axel
I am one of those with a particular fondness for Dan Kramer’s book of Bob Dylan photographs.
My wife bought me the original Citadel Press edition soon after we married, some 55 years or so ago, and I still have it. The dust jacket shows its age - so do I – but the book is still much loved – as is she.
The photos cover a fascinating period in Dylan’s development.
I don’t know if it was the influence of Kramer himself or designer Peretz Kaminsky but I was always impressed by the handling of the spreads where Kramer’s photos covered more than one page. Too often, in photobooks, the ‘fold’ line across the double-page photos ‘breaks up’ the ‘sense’ of the image. By and large, this is avoided in the Kramer book.
In particular, I like the photo on pages 80 and 81. Dylan and Baez are shown together backstage, across a large room, reflected in a full-height wall mirror. Kramer himself is seen on the extreme left, also reflected in the mirror taking the photo. It is printed so that Kramer is seen in a narrow strip on the left-hand page, separated by the central ‘fold’ from the subjects of the photo, who take up the full width of the right-hand page.. It seems perfectly to encapsulate the relationship between photographer and performer, as indicated in the post.
I would add three further comments.
[1] The August 1964 photograph of Dylan reading the New York Herald Tribune was cropped in the original book to exclude Sally Grossman in her swimwear. It was quite a surprise when the full photo appeared later.
[2] I would like to have seen mention of photographer David Gahr, who also took some impressive (and oft-reproduced) pictures of Dylan in the 1960s. (Dylan even asked him to take some publicity photos many years later)
[3] I was much surprised, to read subsequently, that Dylan tried to supress Kramer’s book. It was originally intended for publication in late 1966 but Dylan took legal action against the publisher and Kramer. The case went as far as New York State’s Supreme Court, which ruled against Dylan on the basis that “the plaintiff fails … to show irreparable injury”. It went on to state that the book did not show Dylan “in an unfavourable light” and did not contain “any matter detrimental to his professional standing”. Mr. Justice Postel also said, “In fact, it would appear that the plaintiff’s professional standing and career will be enhanced by the publication of these photographs in this biographical book”. Hear! Hear! Sometimes, the law is not an ass.