6 Badass Female Rock Photographers You've Never Heard Of

You definitely have never heard of Jini Dellaccio, but do you recognize this album cover? As a middle-aged woman taking photos of budding garage-rock icons The Sonics in the mid-60s, Dellaccio was an unlikely pioneer of counter culture “cool.” Photographing young musicians from The Wailers’ Buck Ormsby to the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, her work was among the first to harness the raucous energy of rock and roll rather than run from it. You can see much more from the incredible Jini Dellaccio archive in the documentary about her life and work, Her Aim Is True.

During the Beatles’ stint in Hamburg, Germany, in 1960, Kirchherr captured the unkempt intensity that captivated the Kaiserkeller club and would take the world by storm. Though she may always be known first as the fiancee of the sixth Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe, it is through her lens that we remember the stylishly unrefined beginnings of the most manic musical sensation the world has witnessed.

An heir apparent to the likes of Dellaccio and Kirchherr, Furmanovsky’s long career as a rock photographer started as a fangirl hoping to snag a photo the Fab Four outside their London studio in the late 60s. Since, she’s framed the likes of Bob Dylan, James Brown, and Oasis; immortalizing each in timeless black and white.

Janet Macoska’s archive is an impressive array of celebrity rock and rollers in action and at rest. From Aretha Franklin to Lou Reed, the 1970s and on is preserved and enhanced by her timing and creative composition.

Pantsios’ career began at a Jefferson Airplane concert in the late 60s. Since then she’s photographed iconic rockers from Joan Jett to Gwen Stefani. In recent years she has spoken candidly about the burdens she overcame in the 1970s and 80s as a female photojournalist. In spite of the restrictions of image-control obsessed media and gender discrimination, she has proved, like Dellaccio before her, her knack for capturing something genuine and revealing about her subjects.

Alice Wheeler gained international acclaim for her intimate documentation of the Seattle music scene in the 1990s. Her photos of Nirvana in particular seem to build off the styles of Dellaccio and Kirchherr. Wheeler’s saturated style gives new attitude and identity to the second generation of Seattle’s garage scene.