Four Legendary Photographers Remember Working With Bob Weir

Bob Weir was the most photogenic and photographed member of the Grateful Dead, often cited for his fashion choices and signature looks through the years. As part of our tribute coverage following Weir’s death on Jan. 10, Rolling Stone spoke with legendary photographers Jay Blakesberg, Danny Clinch, Bob Minkin, and Rosie McGee about what it was like to capture images of Weir over the past six decades.

Jay Blakesberg began taking pictures of the Grateful Dead when he was 16. The first show he shot was on Sept. 2, 1978, at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. “It was a couple of days before I started my senior year of high school,” Blakesberg recalls. “I borrowed my dad’s camera.” A year later, he would have his first paid gig shooting the band for the Aquarian Weekly, a local alternative newspaper. He would continue photographing dozens of different iterations of the band through nearly 50 years, including Bob Weir’s last performance at GD 60.  Blakesberg has also served as a mentor to Bob’s daughter, photographer Chloe Weir.

Rosie McGee has been taking pictures since she was 12. She moved with Phil Lesh to San Francisco in 1966 and became a part of the band’s inner circle. Not only did she take photos of the band, but McGee also worked closely with them, helping with travel and other odd jobs. Rosie documented her life with the Grateful Dead in two self-published books filled with her own photos. 

Danny Clinch was introduced to the Grateful Dead by a high school friend, “It took me a minute to get into it, and I did end up going to several shows when Jerry was around,” he recalls. He would always sneak his camera in. He went on to shoot official press photos for Dead and Company. One of his favorite memories wasn’t taking pictures, but performing with Bob at a Grammy party. “Freakin’ Bob Weir shows up. We were like, ‘Are you kidding me? This is amazing,’” Clinch recalls. “And we’re like, ‘You want to sit in?’ He was like, ‘Yeah.’ It was really magical.” 

Bob Minkin has been a Bobby fan since he was 13. He started going to shows in 1972, and just five years later, he began taking professional photos of the band for Relix magazine. Minkin lived in Marin County, close to Weir’s home. Over the years, he took many photos of Bob and his family, including holiday photos and images from his daughter Monet Weir’s Sweet 16 celebration. “It was surreal,” Minkin recalls. “This room is full of 16-year-old girls and boys, as well as Bobby and his wife.” Minkin would also frequently stop by Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, which is within walking distance from Weir’s house. At the famous club, he photographed Bobby alongside artists such as Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Lukas Nelson, and Herbie Hancock. 

Here are those four photographers’ memories of working with Bob Weir, in their own words.

Jay Blakesberg

This photo was taken the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey. That was a special Deadheads-only concert where you had to mail a letter to an address and if you got chosen — because it holds 3,000 people. They played a stadium three months before, and now they’re playing a 3,000-seat theater right down the street, essentially. Got a ticket for that. I wrote to [the band], basically lying, saying that I lost my serial number to get my tickets. It was like “the dog ate my homework.” I was 16 years old. It’s classic. Luckily, a buddy of mine from high school’s mother was friends with the mother of the guy who ran the box office, and we ended up getting tickets.

At Fare Thee Well in 2015, I was always looking for that killer shot of Bob, Phil, and Trey [Anastasio] in close proximity to each other. During “Not Fade Away,” just before the second set ended, Bob and Trey came in from the wings towards each other with guns blazing, heads whipping, and legs rising, and at that moment the stars all aligned for me to get that high-energy photograph of the three of them. Not spread out on a large stadium-size stage, but connecting intimately at the peak moment!

But I love so many live shots that I took of him onstage with Dead & Co. There’s several that are really my favorites. My photos that capture Bob in an intense moment, in a happy smiling moment, in a ecstatic leg-up-in-the-air, arm-up-in-the-air moment, those are all my favorite photos. And when he’s connecting with his bandmates onstage, when he’s connecting with his bandmates offstage. I just feel like Bob was all about the music and I want that to show through in my photographs because at the end of the day, it was his music and those songs and the way that he practiced them and reinvented them and reinterpreted them and played them differently every time because no risk, no reward. And they went for it, and there was a lot of reward out there.

In Golden Gate Park, at the very end of the last night when the band did their bow, they all bowed and then everybody left the stage and just Bobby and Mickey stayed out onstage. It was a really, really touching moment. I don’t know if anybody knew it at the time that it was the last time they were going to be onstage together. And so that’s a really special photograph for me: Bob and Mickey up there, just  being in the moment on Aug. 3, 2025. It’s the final photograph. And I always would say that even though Jerry died in 1995, my Grateful Dead photography archive is not complete until all the band members stop playing music. So the Jerry part is done, the Phil part is done, the Bobby part is done. There’s still more music to come from Mickey and Billy [Kreutzmann], and the archive continues to grow with them for now. But that is my last photo of Bob. That’s, to me, a meaningful photo.

Rosie McGee

I don’t think I ever “worked with Bobby” as a photographer — I just photographed him spontaneously, mostly candid photos behind the scenes during the band’s wild and wonderful first decade and then a few times in the mid-Eighties. Mostly he never noticed, but once in a while, he stopped just long enough to engage with me directly. I treasure the resulting photos as gifts.

Danny Clinch

They had one PR session, and I shot it. They gave me a ton of time and we had a blast. It was so much fun being around the band and Bob. He was sort of a spiritual guru and a guy who was going with the flow and was just really open-minded. It was just so cool to be around.

I loved his transformation into shaggy-haired, cowboy-hat-wearing, big-mustache, poncho-wearing Bob. I loved that part of him and I was glad that I was able to capture him in that moment as well. It was visually so cool.

I got to watch him appreciate the younger musicians. This is a great Bob Weir moment for me, where it’s myself, Bob, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff, Margo Price, all standing in a big circle, smoking a huge joint. Everybody in the circle. I just looked around and of course I was photographing very casually, just because I was a part of the group. Everybody there was just like, “Is this really happening? Because this is pretty wild.” Just living in that moment was incredible.

Bob Minkin

Here’s a cool backstage moment. The Dead played thousands of shows, but here they are going on stage at Laguna Seca in California [in the late 1980s]. There’s Bill Graham leading the way. Look at Jerry and Bob. They’re smiling and eager. It’s like they’re going to work. They got their tools, their toolbox. And look at Bill Graham clapping his hands as he’s walking up the steps. Jerry, you could see him smiling and nodding.

I was at out at [Bob’s] house shooting a cover story for Relix. I was just alone there with [his wife] Natascha, because Bobby was out riding his bike. So Bobby came home, and he was like, “All right, let’s do the photos.” And I looked at Natascha, “Tell him to take a shower.” So he took a shower. And I didn’t mind waiting in his house. I was looking around. He lived there for a long time. That’s where he moved [after] the Haight-Ashbury days, it’s the same house. Anyway, so finally he was ready. We did some shots at his house, in his garden, but then he said, “Let’s go down the street. I’ll show you where Natascha and I got married.” The street ends in a cul-de-sac by redwood trees. And at the end of the cul-de-sac, through the trees, you could see the top of Mount Tamalpais. We went down there. He took his guitar. [His daughter] Monet, she was on his shoulders completely naked. I mean, she was a little girl. And he goes, “You hold my guitar.” And we walked down the street and we stopped. He was telling me how he got this guitar. It was a George Benson model guitar, and he said he was at the factory where they made them. They were showing him this new one that they made for George Benson. And he took it, and he goes, “I like this guitar. You can make him another one.” He just took the guitar.

This is Bobby and Natascha. They’re all dolled up. They were on their way home from Neal Schon’s wedding. This guitar he’s holding is Jerry Garcia‘s actual Wolf guitar. It rarely makes it out in public. The owner brought it. Bobby and Natascha only stopped by for five minutes. I’m just glad I was there to get that. Even the shot of them without the guitar would’ve been cool. But he happens to be holding the Wolf guitar, the first guitar I saw Jerry play. It was like, “Oh, my God, there it is.”

That’s at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, which is really walking distance from his house. He played there a lot. And a lot of times these bands that played there with him were the first time they’re playing together. I loved being there when he was there with somebody like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, because he loved Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. He tells the famous story when he was a teenager, how he snuck into a Ramblin’ Jack Elliott show. He climbed through a window, and fell through an open-door floor, and it was a whole story. He’s sitting here with Jack and somebody said, “So how’d you guys meet?” That’s all you need. And they’re talking, and they’re very animated, and I’m up close, like click, click, click.