In the 1960s, Henry Diltz was a musician who found himself playing on recording sessions with The Monkees. Then he picked up a camera and began a second career that would put him in the room with some of the biggest names in rock history.
On Sept. 6, the legendary musician and photographer turns 88.
Born in Kansas City, Mo., in 1938, Diltz performed with the Modern Folk Quartet before becoming interested in photography. He met The Monkees, played on some of their recording sessions and began taking photographs of the group.
His relationship with The Monkees eventually became so close that, according to Micky Dolenz, they didn’t want anyone else photographing them.
Henry Diltz Played With The Monkees Before Becoming Their Photographer
Diltz and Dolenz recently revisited their nearly 60-year friendship for Spectrum News California’s The SoCal Scene, meeting at West Hollywood’s legendary Troubadour.
“This is since ’67,” Diltz said of their friendship. “In fact, Tiger Beat hired me to go down and photograph this group called The Monkees.”
Dolenz remembered that the band had struggled to find photographers they actually enjoyed having around.
“They were having trouble finding photographers that we would get along with,” he said. Then Diltz showed up, whom Dolenz affectionately described as “this other long-haired weirdo, just like us.”
Rather than constantly posing the band, Diltz simply followed them through their everyday lives.
“He just would follow us around to lunch or just around the lot,” Dolenz recalled.
Eventually, The Monkees made their feelings about Diltz official.
“At one point, we said, ‘That’s it. Henry Diltz is the only photographer that’s allowed to shoot us,'” said Dolenz with a laugh.
That unobtrusive approach would become a hallmark of Diltz’s work.
Related: The Monkees’ ‘Fifth Monkee,’ the Man Behind ‘Daydream Believer’ & ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday,’ Turns 84
Henry Diltz Photographed More Than 250 Album Covers
“I didn’t know about lighting and studios and all that,” Diltz explained on The SoCal Scene. “I just photographed what I saw.”
He also offered a wonderful explanation for how photography opened up a completely different world for him.
“Having a camera is a passport into people’s lives, you know?” Diltz said. “Why would I be hanging out with the Eagles or Jim Morrison or any of those people? It’s just having that camera.”
And Diltz’s camera went just about everywhere.
He photographed more than 250 album covers, including The Doors’ Morrison Hotel, James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, Crosby, Stills & Nash’s self-titled debut and several albums by the Eagles, including Desperado. He was also an official photographer at Woodstock and photographed the Monterey Pop Festival and the Miami Pop Festival.
Diltz became particularly associated with the musicians of Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon, documenting a scene that included artists such as Joni Mitchell and The Mamas and the Papas.
His work has continued to earn recognition decades later. In 2023, Diltz received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards. And in 2025, he made a fitting cameo as himself in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, photographing the fictional rock band.
Even at 88, Diltz still carries a camera.
As The SoCal Scene observed while Diltz and Dolenz wandered through the Troubadour together, he is “still telling stories about the past.”
Fortunately for rock fans, Diltz spent nearly six decades making sure there were pictures to go with them.
Related: Last Surviving Member of ’60s NBC Phenomenon Opens Up About His 3 Late Bandmates: ‘It’s Like They’re Still There’
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