--- title: Bruce Springsteen: Pictures by Frank Stefanko Capture 'Grit' description: A new book traces Springsteen's career as captured by Frank Stefanko, a photographer who the musician says "looked for your true grit." canonical: https://time.com/4979520/bruce-springsteen-frank-stefanko-photos/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-01T14:30:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:24.682Z article:section: History og:title: Bruce Springsteen: Pictures by Frank Stefanko Capture 'Grit' og:description: A new book traces Springsteen's career as captured by Frank Stefanko og:url: https://time.com/4979520/bruce-springsteen-frank-stefanko-photos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt80682341dced504c/6988e1aa8fd2eebc223593d1/bruce-springsteen-frank-stefanko-03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: Bruce Springsteen by Frank Stefanko og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bruce Springsteen: Pictures by Frank Stefanko Capture 'Grit' twitter:description: A new book traces Springsteen's career as captured by Frank Stefanko twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt80682341dced504c/6988e1aa8fd2eebc223593d1/bruce-springsteen-frank-stefanko-03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See Early Photos of Bruce Springsteen From the Photographer Who Captures His 'True Grit' > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Nov 1, 2017 2:30 PM UTC  “Corvette Winter” shot used by Springsteen on the cover of his autobiography “Born To Run”. “Corvette Winter” shot used by Springsteen on the cover of his autobiography “Born To Run”. Frank Stefanko by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Nov 1, 2017 2:30 PM UTC _The new book_ Bruce Springsteen: Further Up the Road _traces nearly four decades of the_ [_beloved musician_](http://time.com/money/4915602/bruce-springsteen-broadway-tickets-music-concert/)_‘s career, as seen by the self-taught photographer Frank Stefanko. Stefanko’s photographs include the cover images for the_[ _Springsteen albums_ ](http://time.com/4186686/bruce-springsteen-photos-the-river/)Darkness on the Edge of Town _and_ The River_, but many of the images in the book have never before been published._ _In Springsteen’s_ [_memoir_ ](http://time.com/4080988/house-bruce-sprinsteen-wrote-born-to-run-for-sale/)Born to Run, _he described working with Stefanko:_ I’d gotten to know Patti Smith a little through our work together on “Because the Night.” When I visited her during one of her performances at The Bottom Line, she gave me the name of a South Jersey photographer and said, “You should let this guy take your picture.” One winter afternoon I drove south to Haddonfield, New Jersey, and met Frank Stefanko. Frank had photographed Patti at the beginning of her career. He worked a day job at a local meatpacking plant and continued to practice his craft in his spare time.  Frank Stefanko and Bruce Springsteen, Colts Neck, NJ, 2017. Frank Stefanko Frank was a rough-edged but easygoing kind of guy. My recollection is he borrowed a camera for the day, called a teenage kid from next door to come over and hold up his one light and started shooting. I stood against some flowery wallpaper in Frank and his wife’s bedroom, looked straight into the camera, gave him my best “troubled young man,” and he did the rest. One of those photos ended up on the cover of _Darkness on the Edge of Town._ Frank’s photographs were stark. His talent was he managed to strip away your celebrity, your artifice, and get to the raw you. His photos had a purity and a street poetry to them. They were lovely and true, but they weren’t slick. Frank looked for your true grit and he naturally intuited the conflicts I was coming to terms with. His pictures captured the people I was writing about in my songs and showed me the part of me that was still one of them. We had other cover options but they didn’t have the hungriness of Frank’s pictures. _Text from BORN TO RUN by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 2016 by Bruce Springsteen. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc._  Bruce Springsteen. Further Up The Road is published by Wall of Sound Editions. Wall of Sound Editions [Bruce Springsteen: Further Up the Road](http://www.wallofsoundgallery.com/en/bruce-springsteen/) _is available from Wall of Sound Editions._  Bruce Springsteen wearing a torn, worn out Rutgers University T-shirt for the Darkness box set, 1978. Frank Stefanko  Bruce Springsteen in Frank Stefanko's bedroom, Haddonfield, NJ, 1978\. Photo shoot for the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" album cover. Frank Stefanko  “Corvette Winter” shot used by Springsteen on the cover of his autobiography “Born To Run”. Frank Stefanko  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Frank Stefanko's living room, Haddonfield, NJ, 1978. Frank Stefanko  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band playing pinball at Shellow's Luncheonette, East Camden, NJ, 1978. Frank Stefanko  Bruce Springsteen in the phone booth at Shellow's Luncheonette, East Camden, NJ, 1978. Frank Stefanko  Bruce Springsteen sitting under a tree in 1982. Frank Stefanko  Bruce Springsteen in the house he rented in 1982 in Monmouth County, NJ, to write and record his first solo album "Nebraska". 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