Gijsbert Hanekroot (1945, Brussels) started his career as a photographer of rock musicians in the late sixties. In those days the rock scene was not quite the well-oiled machine it is today. Things still had to be invented: light installations, sound, promotion, organisation, crowd control. The same went for music journalism and photography too. Hanekroot’s development as a photographer essentially parallels that of the music scene. He travelled a lot and came face to face with the music icons of that period.
From 1970 to 1975, he was a photographer for the famous Dutch Music Magazine OOR, where he was succeeded by Anton Corbijn.
His photos can be divided into four categories: concert photos, studio photos, portraits and photos made at press conferences. Hanekroot stopped being a professional photographer in 1983 and became an entrepreneur. A few years ago he began to digitise his archives. This resulted in the publication of Abba to Zappa, Seventies Rock Photography (Veenman, 2008) and exhibitions in among others Paris, London, Moscow and Tokyo. Nowadays Hanekroot works mainly as a documentary photographer. In 2016, he published a new book: ‘David Bowie - The Seventies.’ The legendary artist died that year.
He photographed the 'Ziggy Stardust' tour in 1973 at Earls Court in London. He made wonderful pictures of this memorable show with constant costume changes. In 1974, Bowie was in Hilversum for a shooting in the TopPop studio with the song 'Rebel Rebel'. Not long after, he received an Edison at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam during a festive press conference. Hanekroot also photographed the 'Thin White Duke' tour in 1976 at the concert in Ahoy Rotterdam and later the 1978 tour. Hanekroot exhibited several times in the Netherlands too, for example; Rock around the camera, Rotterdam Kunsthal, 1994; Pophelden van de Jaren Zeventig (Pop heroes of the seventies), Amsterdam Newsphoto, 2005; Van Abba tot Zappa, Museum Volkenkunde Leiden, 2009.
