--- title: The Story Behind the Most Famous Photo of Tupac | TIME description: In 1993, photographer Danny Clinch was on assignment for 'Rolling Stone' magazine to shoot with the late rapper, Tupac Shakur. Little did Clinch know that the image would go down in music history as one of the best known images of the rapper. canonical: https://time.com/video/eLMjwBUd/ og:title: The Story Behind the Most Famous Photo of Tupac og:description: In 1993, photographer Danny Clinch was on assignment for 'Rolling Stone' magazine to shoot with the late rapper, Tupac Shakur. Little did Clinch know that the image would go down in music history as one of the best known images of the rapper. og:url: https://time.com/video/eLMjwBUd/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/eLMjwBUd/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Story Behind the Most Famous Photo of Tupac twitter:description: In 1993, photographer Danny Clinch was on assignment for 'Rolling Stone' magazine to shoot with the late rapper, Tupac Shakur. Little did Clinch know that the image would go down in music history as one of the best known images of the rapper. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/eLMjwBUd/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Story Behind the Most Famous Photo of Tupac > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Story Behind the Most Famous Photo of Tupac [Watch (HLS stream): The Story Behind the Most Famous Photo of Tupac](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/eLMjwBUd.m3u8) (2:24)  _Published 2016-09-09. In 1993, photographer Danny Clinch was on assignment for 'Rolling Stone' magazine to shoot with the late rapper, Tupac Shakur. Little did Clinch know that the image would go down in music history as one of the best known images of the rapper._ --- Jul 27, 2023 8:45 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [30 Years After Tupac Shakur Was Killed, a Murder Trial Begins ](/video/8OuAuQ2t/) ### 30 Years After Tupac Shakur Was Killed, a Murder Trial Begins [Witness to the 1996 Drive-By Shooting of Tupac Shakur Charged in Rapper's Death](/video/BDjfYP04/) ### Witness to the 1996 Drive-By Shooting of Tupac Shakur Charged in Rapper's Death [Tupac Shakur Posthumously Honored with Hollywood Walk of Fame Star](/video/Aj3pELYc/) ### Tupac Shakur Posthumously Honored with Hollywood Walk of Fame Star --- ## Transcript So I got a call from Rolling Stone magazine. And I hadn't gotten a lot of assignments from them at that point, so I was really excited to photograph Tupac Shakur. I really was enamored with the idea of the captured moment and spontaneity and all these things, really shooting loose. He showed up with one guy, and I often had A whole posse come in when I would photograph, like a hip hop artist. They tend to travel in a big group of friends and turn the whole thing into a party, which is often fun as well, and then sometimes it gets in your way. Well he showed up, and he was very professional. And he was very interested and excited to be photographed by Rolling Stone. And, we kind of hit it off right away. I showed him some of my work, and he was appreciative of it. And was just, he had brought extra clothes to change into. He was really prepared. And one of the other things that comes to mind, for me was that it was Rolling Stone magazine, and I was thinking to myself, man, if this guy ever blew up I would have this great photograph. And what if this record is so well received that it could end up on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, right. So I kind of was thinking about that too and this Shot keeping it simple, keeping some space around it. So that like if they ever wanted to use it on the cover, that they could. It was just like a pipe dream you know. You can never really anticipate what the photograph's gonna become, due to like the history of the artist. And for me I feel like I was really happy with the session that we'd done and proud of it. And I just had no idea that it was going to turn into one of the few really solid photographs of Tupac. I feel, for me, I feel honored to be a part of that history. And it's been interesting to see people's expressions when They find out that I took that photograph. Sometimes people, they're just like, what? You took that photograph? They just can't even believe it. It seems like one of those photos that's always existed in the world and they're like, did somebody actually focus a camera, put some film in and click the shutter, because it feels Really, kind of timeless. 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