John Cage Photographer

(Photo: Rex Rystedt)

I was interested to hear this week that John Cage had a keen interest in photography. Rex Rystedt got in touch with me about a copyright infringement on my part. I had used, without permission, his photograph (above) to illustrate a review of an all-Cage concert. Rystedt was very nice about it, no legal threats or anything like that, just a request for a credit. He then went on to tell me about the session.

The photograph was shot in Seattle for Cornish TBA Magazine in the mid-1980s. Rystedt had not heard of Cage, but says he was a joy to work with. Cage said that he was a photographer too, and that he and shot what he called "chance photography", which he described as "a monkey throwing a camera up in the air".

A cursory look round the internet yields very little, in fact nothing at all, about Cage's photography. His photographs may be included in the Cage Archive at Bard College, but again I've found no mention. If anybody out there has any information about Cage's photography, or even better some images, I'd be very interested to see them, and so would my very forgiving photographer contact.