Deborah Chesher was culling through her old boxes of negatives one day when a random thought crossed the photographer’s mind about how young and alive all of the guitar gods of her youth had been. It was quickly followed by the realization that many of those rockers were also dead, and most had died young.

She has now brought those synaptic occurrences into focus in the coffee table book “Everybody I Shot Is Dead.” The 208-page volume, with photos ranging from black-and-white to color, celebrates the joyous, often unguarded, moments of some of rock music’s biggest stars. By its theme, the book also chronicles some of the legendary excesses that led such stars as Harry Nilsson, the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson, T Rex’s Marc Bolan and scores of others to their early exits.

Chesher, however, chooses to downplay that element. “It’s truly not about dead people as much as it is about how amazing these musicians were,” Chesher says as she sips a latte during a recent interview at a friend’s art studio. “The theme is resurrection.

I’m bringing them back to life with pictures that have never been seen before and that were taken at a time when they were all extremely vibrant and productive - which is how I like to remember them.” As much a fan as a photographer when she started, the native Canadian arrived in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s with a 35-mm camera and a portfolio of touring rock acts she had photographed as they passed through Vancouver.