Rock Prophecies is a 2009 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 concerning rock photographer Robert M. Knight

Robert M. Knight

Robert M. Knight has been photographing rock stars for 40 years. One of the first professional photographers to shoot Jimi Hendrix and the last to photograph , Knight has been in the business since 1968, and has quietly created a sprawling archive of classic rock n' roll stills, including the...

. It is directed by John Chester

John Chester

John Chester is a documentary filmmaker, TV director, and cinematographer. During his high school years he made student films in his hometown, the mainly seasonal resort town of Ocean City, Maryland, USA. but later lived in the Los Angeles area where he worked as a Production assistant on a...

 (Lost In Woonsocket, A&E's Random 1

Random 1

Random 1 is a documentary-style reality television series that aired from November 2005 to January 2006 on the A&E cable network. In each episode, hosts John Chester and Andre Miller travel from town to town, in Miller's real-life, rickety pickup truck Jackie, searching for total strangers who are...

) and produced by Tim Kaiser (Seinfeld

Seinfeld

Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...

, Will and Grace).

Plot

The film tells the story of Robert M. Knight

Robert M. Knight

Robert M. Knight has been photographing rock stars for 40 years. One of the first professional photographers to shoot Jimi Hendrix and the last to photograph , Knight has been in the business since 1968, and has quietly created a sprawling archive of classic rock n' roll stills, including the...

, a rock photographer born and raised in Honolulu, who holds the distinction of being one of the first photographers to capture Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

 and Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

, and the last to photograph Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...

. Over the course of the film, Robert revisits the friends and idols of his past, such as Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

, Slash

Slash (musician)

Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...

, Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana

Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...

 and Steve Vai

Steve Vai

Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....

, while helping to kick-start the careers of the Australian band Sick Puppies

Sick Puppies

Sick Puppies is an Australian rock band, formed in 1997. The band consists of vocalist and guitarist Shimon Moore, bassist Emma Anzai and drummer Mark Goodwin....

. Fiercely protective of his ever-expanding photo archive, the photographer struggles with his mother's costly around-the-clock care, and debates whether to sell the 200,000+ photos that mean so much to him.

Life

Hoping to escape a somewhat sheltered upbringing, courtesy of his mother and Baptist minister father, Robert became a travel agent at the age of 16 and worked up the credits to fly to London. With the help of a friend, Robert found himself on the set of the Michelangelo Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni

Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...

 film Blowup

Blowup

Blowup is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, his first English-language film.It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" , translated also as Blow-Up, and by the life...

, and concluded that he had to be a part of what was happening in the culture at that time, and saved up to buy a camera. With an apparent combination of luck and friendliness, Knight began to get himself into the press pit at rock concerts, and in the process befriended such rock 'n roll luminaries as Jeff Beck, Elton John, and the members of Led Zeppelin. Robert became very close with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and is still haunted by his place in history as Stevie's final photographer.