Joel Bernstein’s photography documents more than three decades of rock music history through intimate, deeply personal images. Where other photographers stood at a distance, Bernstein embedded himself — as a confidant, archivist, and fellow music obsessive — inside the world of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and the most influential musicians of our time.

Director Cameron Crowe, whose film Almost Famous was inspired in part by Bernstein’s work, put it best:

“As a photographer, Joel shoots like a fellow musician. Bernstein blends in, using all the resources of his understanding of the songs, the instruments, the subject, and the people. There is soul and movement and most of all, music, in every one of Joel’s images. This is what it looked like, and this is what it felt like. These are truthful angels.”