Danny Clinch‘s name is synonymous with rock photography. He has trained his camera on most of rock’s royalty — Dylan, Cash, Springsteen, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Radiohead and many, many more — and come away with many of the artists’ most iconic images. His work has appeared all over the world in publications like Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, SPIN, The New Yorker and The New York Times, and Clinch is the official photographer for The Grammys and The Tibetan Freedom Concerts. And while his concert work is impressive, Clinch is best known for the incredible images he gets backstage and in the studio; Clinch has access that makes most other concert photographers (myself included) green with envy. Tonight at National Geographic, you can hear the stories behind these images during the first event in Nat Geo’s new series “Music On Photography” featuring moderator Mark Seliger (tonight’s event will be moderated by Juliet Blake, senior vice president at the National Geographic Channel. Seliger will moderate two of the remaining three events in the series.). We spoke to Clinch late last week about a number of subjects, including how he got his start in the music industry, how natural light is the best light to shoot in and how he feels about “first three, no flash.”

The event with National Geographic, how did that come about?

Through a friend of mine that works with the Dave Matthews Band. They told me [National Geographic] were looking for people, musicians that take photographs was really the focus of it, and I’m a photographer that really likes music, so they let me slide.