A spontaneous decision by a 14-year-old boy to skip school in 1973 would ultimately launch one of the most remarkable careers in music photography. Dennis Morris, now a renowned photographer, made that life-changing choice when Bob Marley arrived in England for his first-ever tour of the country. What began as teenage curiosity about the reggae legend transformed into an intimate professional relationship that would span nearly a decade.
On that chilly morning in 1973, young Morris decided he wanted to photograph the Jamaican musician and made his way to the London club where Marley was scheduled to perform. "As he walked towards me, I said 'can I take your picture?' and he said 'yeah man, come in'," Morris recalls. During breaks in the soundcheck, an unlikely friendship began to form as Marley chatted with the schoolboy about growing up in England, while Morris peppered him with questions about life in Jamaica.
The encounter took an unexpected turn when Marley invited the teenager to join the tour. "And then he told me about the tour and he asked me if I'd like to come along. So next morning I packed my bag, as if I was doing sports, went to the hotel and we were off," Morris remembers. Though the tour ended prematurely when band members demanded to return home at the first sight of snow, those few weeks set Morris on a path that would see him photograph some of the world's biggest music stars.
Morris's journey into photography began years earlier in an unlikely setting. Born in Jamaica in 1960 and having moved to London's East End at age five, his interest in photography sparked when he became a choirboy at a local church at age nine. The church had what he describes as a "very eccentric" vicar and operated its own photography club. "There was a darkroom in the vicarage and I saw one of the older boys printing a photograph and I just knew that was going to be my life, really," he explains.
The relationship with Marley proved to be professionally transformative when the reggae star returned to London in 1975 for a legendary performance at the Lyceum Theatre. Morris's familiarity with Marley's performance style from the 1973 tour gave him a significant advantage. "I took some great shots of him because I'd seen them perform from that first tour, so I knew exactly how he performed and I ended up with a cover for NME, Melody Maker and Time Out magazines," Morris explains. He would continue documenting Marley's career right up until the musician's death in 1981.
Interestingly, Morris's original ambition wasn't music photography at all. "My ambition was not to be a music photographer, my ambition was to be a war photographer - but I got sidetracked in a great way," he admits. However, he found his version of conflict photography when invited to document the Sex Pistols during their chaotic 1977 tour at the height of the punk movement. "It was such a chaotic scenario, constantly being threatened, and being attacked whenever they were on the streets, and the gigs were chaotic," Morris describes. "When I worked with the Pistols I found my war, really - for me it was perfect."
Morris's career expanded to include photography of numerous other major artists, from Patti Smith to Oasis, Goldie to Radiohead, with his work taking him around the world. He captured the original Oasis lineup during their 1994 Japan tour and documented Patti Smith during her promotional tour for "Horses" in London in 1976. However, Morris always viewed his music photography as a means to finance his true passion: reportage and documentary work.
His documentary projects have explored important social themes, particularly focusing on marginalized communities in London. His "Growing Up Black" series investigated black culture in 1970s London, while "Southall - A Home from Home" specifically examined the Sikh community. Another project, "This Happy Breed," offered a broader look at life in the capital. "I was documenting my community, my neighborhood and then beyond that," he explains. "I was able to get people to open their doors I just have a natural knack - I can't explain it, they see me, they trust me."
This natural ability to gain trust, Morris believes, has been the key to his success across both documentary and music photography. "If I'm doing a photograph of musicians, what I try to do is take away that mask to reveal their true self because they have an image which they project," he explains. "A lot of people say to me, whether it's from Bob Marley to the Sex Pistols, they feel that they're in the environment with me - it's not just a snapshot, it actually gives you that feeling that you are there, you're a part of it."
Morris's extensive body of work is currently featured in a major exhibition that has garnered significant attention. The show, which first opened at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris before moving to The Photographers' Gallery in London, includes many of his most iconic images, including the famous photograph of Marley taken in the band's van during that first 1973 tour.
The photographer has been particularly pleased with the exhibition's reception, noting how it resonates with visitors on multiple levels. "People say they have been seeing their past lives or their parents' lives or whatever it may be. Like with the Growing Up Black images, a lot of young kids were told by their parents what it was like when they first came to England... and they're like, 'oh, wow, it really was like that'," Morris observes. "Then on the music side they're seeing intimate moments of a band or a movement, it's an insight into what it takes to get to where they got to. I'm just very, very proud of it all."
The exhibition "Dennis Morris: Music & Life" runs at The Photographers' Gallery until September 28, and a companion book of the same title has been published by Thames & Hudson, offering a comprehensive look at a career that began with one teenager's bold decision to skip school and approach a reggae legend.
