Graham Nash's new book, A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash, gets its official release today.
The 79-year-old folk-rock legend helped curate the book, which celebrates his lifelong passion for photography and offers a collection of captivating images that he shot spanning from his childhood to the present.
A Life in Focus includes candid photos of family members, friends and musical associates, self-portraits and artistically shot images captured in various natural settings. Nash also wrote commentary to accompany the pics.
Explaining his approach to photography, Graham tells ABC Audio, "I never want to take pictures of, you know, kittens with balls of wool. I don't want to take images that match my couch…I want to capture something that will disappear in the blink of an eye unless you have the courage to press that trigger."
Among the photos of Nash's famous collaborators and musical contemporaries appearing in the book are images of his ex-girlfriend Joni Mitchell; his former band mates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young; and other legends like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, George Harrison and Cass Elliot.
Graham says some of his favorite pics in the book feature Mitchell, including "one of Joan looking through [a] magnifying glass…[and another taken] through [a] chair hole…when [she was] listening to music."
Other standout photos for Graham include one of Crosby shot in Sag Harbor, New York, while Crosby, Stills & Nash were rehearsing for their debut album, and several of Young, among them "one of [Neil] driving away from us…in his car."
Reflecting on the new book, Nash says, "I want it to be a fun read…I want people to go, 'Wow, all right!' I want people to smile. I want to bring some joy into life."