CHRIS CORNELL WITH ANGEL LOS ANGELES 2006

Chris Cornell and Angel: I shot the original image of Chris in 2006 when I was working with Audioslave. As the complete, composited image you see here it has quite a story behind it. It was always meant to be the image here and at the time I photographed Chris I'd found an image of an angel on the internet as the back plate and lit Chris to match.  But I never finished it and more or less forgot about it until Chris' passing in 2017 by which point it seemed ordained.  But when I moved to complete it, I found I had no image of the angel.

I finally found it, the work of Mel Curtis from Seattle.  What happened next was a terrific collaboration between Mel and i where he provided a high resolution image of the angel (which I then composited and printed with the aid of Dickerman Prints my lab in San Francisco.) In turn i provided Mel with a print of John Lennon which I really hadn't printed before, and the entire process was fun and successful, in my opinion. (You can see Mel's work via this link.)

I happen to be very fond of this image of Chris Cornell. It was from one of my very last sessions as a working photographer and in the end it achieves, both technically and emotionally, what I set out to do.

Rest in peace Chris Cornell. You earned it.

Photograph © Ethan Russell. All rights reserved.

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QUALITY: All photographs are museum quality, archival, and signed and numbered by Ethan Russell. Prices vary by print size and size of edition, but all are for serious enthusiasts or collectors.  Select edition and size below.