Star Trak

by Anton Corbijn (Photographer), Brian Eno (Introduction)

Of course, Anton Corbijn's longtime bestseller is available again: his portrait gallery of the heroes and enfants terribles of film, literature, fashion, pop and rock.

Genres: Photography, Art, Music

144 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1996

About the author

Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer, filmmaker, and video artist. He is best known for his black-and-white portraits of artists shot with slow shutter speeds to allow for the subtle movements and gestures of his subjects. “I feel the imperfection is much closer to how life is than perfection,” the artist has said.

Born Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard on May 20, 1955 in Strijen, Netherlands, Corbijn began shooting local bands at the age 17, before moving to London to work for NME magazine as a staff photographer. He has directed over 80 music videos for a number of musicians, including Nirvana, U2, Depeche Mode, and Joy Division. In 2015, the artist was the subject of the exhibition “Anton Corbijn 1-2-3-4” at the Fotomuseum Den Haag, which included over 300 of his most iconic images. Living and working in The Hague, Netherlands, Corbijn is currently focused on feature-length films.

Reviews

[Anjella · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a hard one. I LOVE Anton Corbijn's work. I was excited to receive this, and the images are wonderful as expected. However (and this is a huge however), the printing is horrible. The images appear to be badly scanned from the negatives. The blacks are blocked up and the tones are awful. They look badly digitised. As a photographer who works with film myself, I have seen these types of scans done before. With a book like this, there should be no excuse for such horrible reproductions. It makes it really hard for me to look at them. They actually have the appearance of being solarised, the tones are so badly all over the place. Having seen some of these images in other books as well as in interviews, this is not how they should look. For such an expensive book, this is really disappointing.

[Bradley Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hasselblad shots printed on lithographic paper for a look that is often copied. Corbijn has photographed nearly everybody, but is best known for his work with U2 and Depeche Mode.

[Gm. John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating!
The first edition of this book has stellar print quality, something that might not be the case with later prints. This book is the essence of rock photography. In a striking way, Corbijns raw and hard hitting style peels off the glossy facade of his subjects, reaching a deeper level of portraying.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anton Corbijn's work is incredible; his photographs are stark and grainy, dark and moody, full of contrast. This book is devoted to photographs he has taken of celebrities over the years. We've seen pictures of these people, in some cases, literally thousands of times, but in this book, we see these stars in completely new ways (in fact, in some cases, they are almost unrecognizable). Corbijn is a master at cutting through the celebrity persona and showing us little pieces of who these people really are. I can't recommend this book highly enough.