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Photographer: Kevin Westenberg · 2002 · London
Image details
THE WHITE STRIPES. LONDON. MOJO MAGAZINE. May 8, 2002.
Hot and sexy band of that moment captured forever! It was a hot day in May being asked to photograph Jack and Meg for MOJO in an old MOT Garage in Camden. Their FIRST U.K. Monthly magazine cover.
18 years later, it seems to have morphed into one of my more famous photographs due to its inclusion in a few highbrow museum placements in America and Germany. Plus TV docs about music photographers. A favorite, but not in my personal choice of ‘Best
in Show’. Their place in Rock &Roll history is now firmly enshrined, but back in 2002 this was not yet the case. This shot has now finally been the cover of MOJO in celebration of the band’s recent ‘Greatest Hits’ album.
This cover shot choice was originally dismissed in favour of a different garage shot with Meg sitting on her bass drum and Jack holding his red guitar. At this point back in 2002, I had been contributing to Mojo for only a short while so really had little say in what the direction of any of the photo usage would be. This suited fine as I always tend to learn the most from the great breadth of art directors I worked with over the years. Mark Wagstaff at MOJO was no exception to this rule. He found this amazing and perfect location for our shoot in the middle of Camden.
This was also right at the beginning of deeper research into location hunting and planning editorial shoots in order to compete with the larger monthly magazines visuals. We also originally made plans of including more ‘Detroit’ style props but this part of the plan failed spectacularly when Jack put the kaboosh on it all. What we got ultimately was a cleaner simpler solution and once the band saw the first Polaroid’s, Happiness was happening. This also led to further collaborations with Jack White through his many incarnations post-White Stripes.
Archival Fine Art Pigment Print
Da Vinci Fibre Gloss Silk 310gsm Cotton Rag Paper
Available editions:
- 16x20" Edition of 25
- 20x24" Edition of 25
- 24x30" Edition of 10
- 30 x 40" Edition of 10
