FAIR WARNING: This weekend is your last chance to see an exhibition that celebrates the photographers who are the rock stars of their genre. If the music marked significant moments in your life, chances are there are photographs from those days that have also become part of your personal mythology - and chances are that you'll find some of them in Who Shot Rock & Roll at the Brooklyn Museum, closing at 6:00 pm on Sunday.

Guest curated by Gail Buckland, the show opens with film footing of the King of Rock and Roll singing "Heartbreak Hotel." Just around the corner, in the first section of the show devoted to young musicians at the beginning of their careers, there's a group of still photos of Elvis at 21 by Alfred Wertheimer.

Left: Patti Smith, 1976, by Godlis. Bob Dylan with Kids, Liverpool, England, 1966, by Barry Feinstein. Right: Madonna, 1983, by Amy Arbus. Copyright the photographers, courtesy Brooklyn Museum.

Image after surprising image in this gallery reveals personas before they had become molded by the fame that followed. A hipshot snap of Patti Smith outside of CBGBs in 1976 by Godlis shows the future punk icon as a regular downtowner. Amy Arbus's carefully composed 1983 portrait of the newly blonde Madonna could hardly predict later versions of the self-made star - lionized here in Andrea Gursky's 10-foot-high reconstruction of a 2001 arena concert. Among the more recognizable shots in this section is Astrid Kirchhers's 1960 photo of The Beatles during their Hamburg days and David Corio's 1979 picture of Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders.

The show breaks into five more sections that attempt to organize material that is, by its nature, random and thankfully, unpredictable. But that's fine because you will see numerous performance photos collected together. One of the most extraordinary pictures in this section is Danny Clinch's shot from onstage looking out across the thousands of fans assembled at the 1995 Reading Festival that shows what it must feel like to be a rock star. Other sections include revealing images taken behind the scenes; portraits made without the managerial hand of handlers; and conceptual images and album covers that demonstrate the collaboration that often takes place between photographer and subject.

Billed as the first major museum show on rock photography, the exhibition collects 175 images by 105 photograpers and spans the history of the genre from a 1966 shot of Jimmi Hendrix backing Wilson Pickett, by William "Popsie" Randolph to Ari Marcopoulos's back view of the artfully tattooed Alice Temple. The book of the same title (Random House 2009) by Gail Buckland presents the same images and more in a different arrangement that organizes the work by photographers, portfolio style.

In addition to the photographs, there are mnitors playing music videos of Bjork, U2 and David Bowie. There is also a slideshow featuring the works of Henry Diltz, who has photographed many artists such as Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Doors and Tina Turner.

Who Shot Rock & Roll, closes Sunday, January 31^st. Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY. The next stop on the national tour is the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, March 5 - May 30, 2010. Click for later tour dates.