You are probably not aware of it, but I am pretty sure that you at some time have seen a photo by the Danish photographer Søren Solkær Starbird. He shoots rock stars and he does it so well that some of the artists specifically ask for him when they are having pictures taken for a new album cover or for promotion material.
His rock star portraits are usually devoid of any artificial paraphernalia and seem to get behind the image and clichés that agents and marketing people carefully build around celebrities. Somehow he seems to be able to do what the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once defined as the most difficult for him - to "get under the shirt" of his subjects.
Søren Solkær Starbirds career as a rock photographer started ten years ago when he was comissioned by his friend Sune Wagner to make promotion shots for Wagners band Raveonettes. His shots, combined with the popularity of Raveonettes on the international music scene gave him so much exposure and attention that over the years he has been commissioned to do portraits, album covers and promotions pictures for Queen, Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin, Oasis, U2 and numerous others.
A broad selection of these pictures has now been published in Søren Solkær Starbirds book "Closer". "Closer" was published in the beginning of April 2009 and contains 238 pages packed with outstanding celebrity photos. To celebrate the publishing of his book Søren Solkær Starbird has, with the help of Canon, Epson and the Danish daily "Politiken" arranged the photo exhibition "Closer" where he, on 40 walls, exhibit more than 300 photos of both well known rock celebrities and young and upcoming bands.
I went to see the exhibition in "Øksnehallen" in Copenhagen and it was nothing less than a breathtaking experience. Not only is "Øksnehallen" which is a more than 100 years old former cattle market in central Copenhagen, an impressive piece of wooden architecture, but when you stand in front of a more than two meter tall portrait of Tom Jones and see every wrinkle, nook and cranny in his face and every stub left by his shaver you almost literally "get under his shirt". Søren Solkær Starbird apparently has the ability to make his subjects drop all shields and just look natural and at the same time make them feel comfortable and enjoy it.
It is nothing less than breath- taking to stand in front of a two meter tall portrait of Tom Jones.One of the things that I noticed about his photos and that I found very inspiring was his ability to play with light and the color black. Many of his portraits are shot against a black background and with the subject in black clothes. Søren Solkær Starbird creates portraits in several nuances of black with an immense number of details in both the clothing and the background and at the same time your eyes are gently drawn to the face of the subject. Once you are done looking at the face you can let your eyes wander off to the rest of the picture and despite it being all black, there are still tons of details to study and experience.
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