Ethan Russell

Ethan Allen Russell (born November 26, 1945, Mt. Kisco, New York) is an American photographer, author and video director, mostly of musicians. He is known as "the only rock photographer to have shot album covers for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who."

The son of Charles Howland Russell and Alice Allen Russell, he is the great grandson of suffragist Florence Jaffray Harriman and the great grandson of Episcopal bishop Henry Codman Potter. He has three siblings. His brother Jeremy Borden Russell (1944–2005) was founder and manager of the rock band Blue Cheer. Other siblings are Linda Russell Matson, (1947-) and Adam Henry Russell (1953–2009). His godfather is Cole Porter.

His family moved to Manhattan in 1950, then in 1952 to San Francisco. Russell attended high school at The Cate School outside Santa Barbara, California, then the University of California, Davis, where he majored in English and Art. He was first introduced and became interested in photography at Davis, but did not work professionally until 1968 when he traveled to England.

The Philadelphia Inquirer described Russell when he was beginning his career: "In 1968, Ethan Russell, a lanky Californian fresh out of college, was living in a London flat, psychedelic posters on the wall, battered purple Beatle boots thrown in a corner, a Nikon camera on the table." He had moved to London with aspirations of becoming a writer, working (and photographing) in a home for autistic children part-time.

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