Though better known for his music — on his own and with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young — Graham Nash has been taking photographs as well, since he was 10 years old.
That’s when his father in Blackpool, England, gave Nash his first camera, and as he aimed the lens at his mother it was love at first click.
Nash, 79, has gone on to take tens of thousands of photographs since and has also become a noted collector. His just-published “A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash” (Insight Editions) features a sampling of that work, including images of his bandmates and other famous friends such as Bob Dylan, onetime girlfriend Joni Mitchell, “Mama” Cass Elliott and more.
The two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer — with CSN and the Hollies — is still making a lot of music. But after years of displaying his photographs in galleries he’s happy to have something fans can put on their shelves alongside his albums.
• Because he’s “a couple of months from being 80 years old” (Feb. 2), Nash says by phone from New York that he “wanted to have at least a decent book of my images out. I put something out a few years ago but that was a private printing. I wanted to bring it up to date because I’ve been taking a lot of pictures since, and I just wanted it to be printed the best way possible. It was a real delight to do this.”
• Nash hopes “A Life in Focus” tells a story that “I see beauty everywhere. I see it in images of people who didn’t know I was there. I see stuff on the ground, particularly here in New York City, just beautiful stuff all over the place. You’ve got to realize I’ve been making photographs longer than I’ve been making music. I have the ability to wake up in the morning and put on my camera and say, ‘OK, life, what have you got for me today? You’re gonna show me something fantastic,’ and I kind of put myself in that mode and it works out pretty good.”
• A photo in the book that particularly sticks with Nash is a portrait of the late “Mama” Cass Elliott, who’s famously responsible for setting CSN in motion. “She has a pink bow in her hair and she’s actually on the phone to one of my partners, and she’s smiling. I think she knew exactly what she was doing when she introduced me to Crosby, and of course he introduced me to Stephen and the rest is history. I think she had a pretty good idea what would happen if we got together.”
• Nash says that when he looks through “A Life in Focus, “I really begin to realize how bloody lucky I am. I mean, look at this book. Look at these moments. I was there? Yes I was. Did I have my camera? Yes I did. Y’know, the picture of Bob Dylan I shot when Joni was doing the Johnny Cash show in Nashville in 1969, nobody knew who … I was. I was just this guy with Joni. The CSN album hadn’t come out yet. They had no idea who I was. So it was courageous of me to walk up to Bob Dylan and take his picture. But I did, and I’m so glad.”
• Nash has a number of musical projects in the works, including a new solo album and collaboration with Hollies co-founder Allan Clarke. A compendium of CSNY acoustic performances from 1969-70 is also being assembled, and, like Bruce Springsteen, Nash is exploring the possibility of releasing something from CSN’s performances at the 1979 No Nukes concerts in New York. “I’m just writing and recording and creating and printing photographs and working on books and working on music — just like I always am. I still feel like I’m 30 years old inside. I have no idea who that guy is in the mirror, but we’ll just deal with it.” He’ll also be touring during 2022, including an April 1 appearance at The Ark in Ann Arbor.
