Mick Jagger | François Hébel

The retrospective of portraits of Mick Jagger, one of the worlds most photographed performers, was a highlight of the 2010 Arles photography festival; here, all the portraits from that collection are gathered together. Jaggers power, charm and notoriety are the very essence of rock star charisma; his face alone narrates fifty years of portrait photography practice, our relationship with celebrities, of evolving dress and hair codes, and the creation of the rock aesthetic. Doing more than just record the character of high dramatic intensity is the very real challenge that portraitists, it seems, have been tackling for the past fifty years.