The American photographer Daniel Kramer , who has died aged 91, was just beginning his professional career when by chance he caught a young folk singer’s performance on the Steve Allen Show on 25 February 1964 . Until that moment, Kramer had never heard of Bob Dylan, but the 22-year-old singer’s stirring rendition of his stark protest song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll caught his attention. “He may have had a guitar in his hand, but the lyrics were poetry,” Kramer later recalled of Dylan’s delivery.
“And, he had to be very brave because, if you said things like that you could get shot.” Kramer was so impressed that he began repeatedly calling and mailing the office of Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, with requests to photograph the singer. His persistence finally paid off after six months when Grossman himself answered the phone and, to Kramer’s surprise, gave him the go-ahead for a photoshoot.
It took place a few days later at Grossman’s house in Woodstock , upstate New York, the planned one-hour session stretching to five hours. In monochrome tones, Kramer captured Dylan posing on a swing on Grossman’s front porch, deep in concentration during a game of chess with a friend at a local cafe and, in one mischievous shot, pointing one of Kramer’s own cameras back at him. Months later, he accompanied Dylan on tour, creating memorable shots of the singer on and offstage, including one where the singer is lifted off his feet by Joan Baez following a.
