Long-Form Stories

Forever Young; Rowland Scherman – Profile Of An Iconic 1960s Photographer

Rowland Scherman
Written by Brian Tarcy

FALMOUTH – Rowland Scherman is smoking “really good tobacco” in his ever-present pipe on an outside patio at a Mexican restaurant when a very patient waitress tells him that “this is a completely no smoking zone.” Smoke from his pipe, she says, has been wafting into the restaurant.

The waitress has no idea who Scherman is.

Scherman, holding his pipe visibly in his hand while insisting he is not smoking, worked for Life Magazine and many other publications in the 1960s. He’s taken pictures of The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Arthur Ashe, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and Woodstock – including Janis Joplin and his favorites at the time, Crosby Stills & Nash. 

Rowland Scherman looking at self portrait

Rowland Scherman looking at his self portrait that he took reflected in his famous Bob Dylan photo.

He has won a Grammy Award for best album cover – Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits.



His work is in the National Archives. Scherman was the first official photographer for the Peace Corps, in its earliest years. He was the official photographer for the 1963 March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom, in which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech.

(Rowland Scherman’s Website)

The waitress asks him again to please not smoke. “If you arrest me,” he says, “I’ll go quietly.”  She doesn’t want to see him arrested, just to stop smoking on restaurant property, she said.

Rowland Scherman

Rowland Scherman

Drinks are ordered but just before she leaves, the waitress turns and says, “If I come back here and you are smoking again…”

“Kill me,” he says.

Smiling and telling him she doesn’t want to kill him either, the waitress walks away. He puts the pipe down.

And so it begins – a life in photography told in the moment.

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About the author

Brian Tarcy

Brian Tarcy is co-founder of Cape Cod Wave. He is a longtime journalist who has written for the Boston Globe, Boston magazine, the Cape Cod Times and several other publications. He is the author of "YOU CAN'T SELL RIGHT FIELD; A Cape Cod Novel." He is also the author or co-author of more than a dozen mostly non-fiction books, including books with celebrity athletes Cam Neely, Tom Glavine and Joe Theisman. His previous book was, "ALMOST: 12 Electric Months Chasing A Silicon Valley Dream" with Hap Klopp,who created the iconic brand, The North Face.
For more information, see Briantarcy.com
Brian is a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan with a long-running NFL predictions/political satire column connecting weekly world events to the fate of his favorite team, now at Whatsgonnahappen.com.

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