Jarry Garcia, Grateful Dead, Central Park, NY, 1975

Jerry Garcia - My best-selling photograph of all time, used in more magazines than any other. Shot in Central Park on assignment for Good Times magazine. Mid afternoon, very sunny out, and no strobe for fill flash. Even worse, I had high speed B&W film, but I did have Kodachrome for my color shots. I had one prop for the shoot which was stored in a paper bag. I was in a panic about the sun (too much!), which gave him heavy face shadows with dark eye rings. Jerry brought his tour manager with him who (I think) might have done some photography because throughout the shoot all I could hear him say is that none of the photos will come out because of the shadows on the face. He didn't realize I was shooting Jerry with either the sun at his back or behind a tree. We walked to a children's playground area and sat Jerry on a set of swings and pulled out of my paper bag a Raggedy Ann doll, placed it on Jerry's lap, and started to shoot. The tour manager turned to me, smiled and said, 'good idea.' I was looking for a good background and found a giant elm. Jerry was wearing his glasses and I was getting heavy reflections, so I had him push the glasses to the edge of his nose and peer over the rims while holding the frames. -- Richard E. Aaron

Tri-X film ASA400 1/250sec. f/4 85mm lens. Available light.