SPIN

Ringo Starr's personal photographer Rob Shanahan's new book Volume 1: Through the Lens of Music Photographer Rob Shanahan features shots of some of his favorite subjects (including, well, Ringo Starr, who wrote the foreword!). He gave SPIN a tour of some of his classic shots (and you can order the book via his official website):

Shanahan says this is "probably one of my favorite photos, such a great series, I am lucky and fortunate to be able to shoot them together." It was during an Apple shoot for the Beatles Rock Band promo and was Shanahan's third or fourth time shooting them together. Paul and Ringo were joking around during setup, and Paul didn't think Rob would catch him kissing Ringo.

Ringo's 70th birthday at Top of the Rock in NYC boasted a lot of great rock icons. But when Keith walked in, Shanahan says, "the place went nuts." When he came over to Ringo and Paul, Shanahan started shooting.

The Mötley Crüe drummer came in at sound check at this 2005 Omaha show and talked with Rob about his vision for this shot — it actually became a poster for DW Drums. (In fact DW had to do a second run of the poster because it was so popular.) "It gets around, people like the shot," says Shanahan.

This was shot at Joe Walsh's house, but Shanahan dropped in a background from Italy.

Shanahan proposed his concept for the photo and Dolmayan was all in — but Rob had to figure out how to pull it off. He initially thought the drums would float, but ended up puncturing the drum heads so they would fill with water and sink to the bottom of the pool.

At sound check at this 2005 show in Boise, Shanahan learned he could have all access onstage during the show. He considers this Van Halen photo one of his iconic shots.

This photo was taken at the Troubadour, during a show the Foo Fighters played with Queens of the Stone Age. Shanahan wanted to get a shot of the Foos frontman behind the drums, so he went to sound check to score the shot.

Shanahan went down to Megadeth HQ in San Marcos and spent time with Mustaine, and the shot quickly evolved from there.