Joel Bernstein (b.1952)

: Joni Mitchell Skating on Lake Mendota with Treeline, Madison, WI, March 1976

: Joni Mitchell Skating on Lake Mendota, Madison, WI, March 1976

: Joni Mitchell Skating on Lake Mendota, Madison, WI, March 1976

: Joni Mitchell, Portrait with Beret, 1976

: Jackson Brown, Lost in Thought, 1977

: Bruce Springsteen, Palace Amusements and Ferris Wheel, 1979

: Tom Petty in Record Store, LA, 1981

: Jackson Brown, 1977

: Neil Young in Limo with Gretsch White Falcon, 1970

: Neil Young at Home with Window, Broken Arrow Ranch, 1971

: Neil Young, Backstage at the Spectrum, 1970

: Tom Petty, 1979

: Neil Young and Graham Nash, 1970

: Neil Young Passes Old Woman, Solarized, 1970

: Prince with Purple Clouds, 1987

In 1969, Joel Bernstein was a 16 year old in high school. That was the year Joni Mitchell asked him to be her photographer.

He had taken her photograph 2 years prior at a small venue show in Philadelphia, delivering it a few days later. Mitchell visited Philadelphia to perform again in ’69, and during that time he shared an image with her that she referred to as “the best picture of me that has ever been taken”. She invited him to be her photographer; an unusual suggestion considering his current high school enrollment status and her home being in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles.

In the years that followed, Joel Bernstein photographed Neil Young in Greenwich Village, tuned guitar for the Last Waltz at Winterland, and rented a room from Graham Nash.

In 2023, Joni Mitchell was awarded the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. To this day, Joel Bernstein is still Joni Mitchell’s photographer.