Why Joseph Szabo’s Rolling Stones Fans Matters to Fashion, and Beyond: The Photographer on How He Gets the Picture

In the summer of 1978, Joseph Szabo hopped in a car with two of his high school students and, along with 90,000 other fans, headed to Philadelphia to see the Rolling Stones play. Szabo came to JFK Stadium armed with a couple of Canon cameras, a Rolleiflex, and a bag full of film, but he never aimed his lens at the main stage; his interests were far afield. Looking now at those pictures, collected in a new book, Rolling Stones Fans , it’s clear that some of the most resonant photographs of that day are not of the band at all, but of the crowds in the stands who essentially mirrored their image: In the fans, Szabo found his own answers to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, strutting on the sidelines, caught up in the pure thrall of the concert experience.