Fred W. McDarrah, 81; photographer for the Village Voice

Fred W. McDarrah, a Village Voice photographer who chronicled some of New York’s most important cultural and political events during more than three decades at the alternative weekly, has died. He was 81.

McDarrah died Tuesday in his sleep at his home in Greenwich Village, a day after celebrating his 81st birthday and 47th wedding anniversary, said his son Patrick McDarrah.

In his impressive career, McDarrah captured images of Beat generation writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and photographed Andy Warhol, Norman Mailer and Bob Dylan. He was there when the Stonewall riots erupted in 1969, marking the beginning of the gay rights movement, and when Sen. Robert F. Kennedy toured a Lower East Side slum during his race for the presidency. One of McDarrah’s best-known images was a close-up of a youthful Dylan, dressed in a black turtleneck and jacket and giving a military-style salute.

He also published numerous books of his photography, including “Anarchy, Protest and Rebellion: And the Counterculture That Changed America” and “Kerouac and Friends: A Beat Generation Album.”

Born in Brooklyn on Nov. 5, 1926, McDarrah served in the Army as a paratrooper during World War II.

In 1954, he graduated from New York University with a degree in journalism. He joined the Village Voice a short time later as an ad salesman and became the publication’s photographer.

He remained on the Voice’s masthead as consulting picture editor until his death. For decades, he ran the photo department, helping train dozens of young photographers at the Voice, including Sylvia Plachy, the newspaper said.

In 1960, he gained national recognition after he placed an ad in the Voice offering to rent “Genuine Beatniks -- Badly Groomed But Brilliant (male and female).” He was flooded with responses to the ad and actually booked beatniks -- some of them poets and some of them artists -- at various events throughout the New York area.

In addition to Patrick, McDarrah is survived by his wife, Gloria; son Timothy; and three grandchildren.