Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders

The inspiration behind the film with Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, and Mike Faist.

First published in 1968, The Bikeriders explores firsthand the stories and personalities of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. This journal-size volume features original black-and-white photographs and transcribed interviews by Lyon, made from 1963 to 1967, when he was a member of the Outlaws gang. Authentic, personal and uncompromising, Lyon’s depiction of individuals on the outskirts of society offers a gritty yet humane perspective that subverts more commercialized treatments of Americana. Akin to the documentary style of 1960s-era New Journalism made famous by writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, Lyon’s photography is saturation reporting at its finest. The Bikeriders is a touchstone publication of 1960s counterculture, crucially defining the vision of the outlaw biker as found in Easy Rider and countless other movies and photobooks.

Danny Lyon (born in New York, 1942), regarded as one of the most influential documentary photographers, is also a filmmaker and writer. His many books include The Movement (1964), The Bikeriders (1968, reissued by Aperture, 2014), Conversations with the Dead (1971), Knave of Hearts (1999), Like a Thief ’s Dream (2007), and Deep Sea Diver (2011). Lyon’s work is widely exhibited and collected, and he has been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships twice, National Endowment for the Arts grants numerous times, and a 2011 Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.