The idolized veteran photographer decided put some of his original pictures up on flickr site, it made quite the statement, and the ripple effect was incredible.One never-before-seen collection he posted was early photos of the Clash, at a Christmas show they played in 1979 to a crowd of 50. The other included a variety of punk-rock and new wave portraits including Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes and Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten and Malcolm McLaren, all before they made it huge.

Within minutes of posting last month, Rosen got his first e-mail response. After about 15 minutes, 30 or 40 people had viewed the photos. In less than a week, there were nearly 100,000 views.