Jim Cummins' photo of Jimi Hendrix performing at Madison Square Garden in 1969 was used by Life magazine the following year for the guitarist's obituary.
For more than three decades, Chris Murray ran the Govinda Gallery in Washington, D.C. He still curates shows and also edits books about rock 'n' roll photography.
"To find an archive that's been lost, if you will, or overlooked, it's always a wonderful and extraordinary thing," he says.
In New York City, a trove of forgotten photographs depicting music icons such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin is being displayed for the first time. The original negatives had been boxed up for decades in photojournalist Jim Cummins' basement.
"The thing I liked about Jim Cummins' archive the most was the album covers," Murray says. "I must say, it was the vinyl long-play album and the 45 [RPM record] jackets where I feel photography and music really had their greatest moments, because they entered into literally millions and millions of people's homes."
During the '60s, '70s and '80s, Cummins' work graced more than 900 album covers.
"Talk about getting your ego stroked," Cummins says. "You know, walk into a record store and you see a wall of like 50 to maybe 100 album covers that you shot. It's kind of mind-blowing."
Accentuate The Negatives
Over the decades, Cummins, now 67, says he pretty much forgot about the stash of unpublished music negatives boxed up in his basement. Then, in 2012, he showed the trove to Bob Pokress of Image Fortress, a Massachusetts company that restores and digitizes photos for the Chicago Tribune and the U.S. National Archives, among others.
Pokress reverently pulls a vintage magazine out of protective wrapping.
Courtesy of Image Fortress
"One of the moments that I was trembling, just in terms of the significance of it, was when Jim pulled out the original slide behind a photo that was used in the October 1970 issue of Lifemagazine that Life ran as the obituary photo a few weeks after Jimi Hendrix died," Pokress says.
Cummins says he remembers taking that picture at Madison Square Garden, not long before the guitarist died at age 27. It shows Hendrix from the waist up. The musician is looking down.
"It's an intense picture," Cummins says. "He's just isolated. I think there's one little light. It's a more quiet Jimi, and I wanted to get that and present that in a way — you know, compose it the way I wanted."
That picture and 11 others from the first group of restored negatives are now on display at the Baboo Gallery in New York City. Cummins says he also plans to publish more unseen images in a book.
"I could've sold this stuff before, OK?" he says. "I would've gotten a decent price, but I wouldn't have anything now."
Now, Cummins says he's excited that part of his restored collection — which contains more than 2,500 images — is available online for everyone to see.
BY MOHAMED ABDIRAHMAN
