Famed Photographer Jean-Pierre Laffont Gives A French Kiss to Music Festival Culture

From the cancelled Powder Ridge festival, where thousands arrived despite there being no performers, to Watkins Glen’s 1973 Summer Jam, where hundreds of thousands descended on a racetrack to see the Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers and The Band, documentary photographer Jean-Pierre Laffont has seen it all.

Student protest in the Reflecting Pool in the aftermath of the Kent State shooting, Washington, D.C., May 9, 1970. Photograph © Jean-Pierre Laffont

Documenting America’s hippie and festival culture at its wildest, the photographs appear in Laffont’s new book,  Damiani book Rebels with a Cause, published by DAMIANI Books. There are naked festival-goers, mud, abandoned cars, sex, drugs, and enormous crowds alongside the cast of Hair performing in Central Park in 1969.

Belgian-born American author,  critic, and artist.  Lucy Sante has written the foreword for the book.

As the first French photographer to dedicate his life to documenting America from the 1960s to 1980s, Jean-Pierre Laffont’s historic photos offer an outsider’s perspective on the phenomenon of a generation defined by their drive to question established norms.

In 1964, he arrived in the United States as an immigrant with a camera,  documenting the counterculture up close. His latest project includes more than  150 photographs, and it is an American celebration of rebellions, including the Vietnam War protests, the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, the LGBTQ+ movement, hippies, religions, and gangs. 

Born in Algeria and now based in New York City,  the 93-year-old Laffont was a founding member of both the Gamma USA and Sygma photo agencies,  the largest,  most storied, and influential photo agencies in the world. Sygma was acquired by the Corbis Corporation in 1999.

New York City, NY, 1966-1967. A community of transvestites, living around 66th Street and Broadway, where they used to work at night. During the day,  they would design clothes, play with dolls, and organize fashion shows on the rooftops. (Jean-Pierre Laffont)

Photograph © Jean-Pierre Laffont