Neal Preston
Neal Preston’s career spans almost 50 years. His legendary music images include some of the most memorable ever made of rock’s most iconic stars. His photographs have appeared in every conceivable media outlet: on the covers and pages of world-class magazines and newspapers, to books, television shows, feature films, Broadway show programs and billboards, vinyl, CD and DVD packages… literally everywhere. His client list is a virtual who’s-who of rock royalty. Preston’s archive, a body of work created over four decades, is regarded as one of the music industry’s most extensive and significant photo collections. It was the key source of photographs for VH-1’s acclaimed “Behind the Music” documentary series, providing over one thousand still photos used in 50 episodes.
Rock fans best know Preston as the legendary photographer who has toured with Led Zeppelin, The Who, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen and countless others. In 1985, Preston was chosen as one of the official photographers for Bob Geldof ’s “Live Aid” concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. In 1988 his association with Bruce Springsteen helped land him the job as official tour photographer for Amnesty International’s landmark “Conspiracy of Hope” tour.
Aside from his elite status as one of music’s most important photographers, Neal Preston has done much more than shoot musicians. He is also a gifted sports and news photographer and remains the most-assigned photojournalist in the history of People Magazine with almost 700 shoot days to his credit. Preston is a member of the International Cinematographers Guild and has worked as unit and special photographer for feature films including “Almost Famous” and “Vanilla Sky”, both directed by Oscar®-winning writer/director Cameron Crowe, and most recently the 2018 re-make of “A Star is Born”, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper. In 2017 his monograph “Neal Preston–Exhilarated and Exhausted” was published by the British publishing house Reel Art Press and garnered rave reviews both for the photography and the writing.