How I was influenced by music that lead me to becoming photographer both in and out of music.
I never get tired of shooting music photography in Nashville and Los Angeles because these are the experiences I dreamt of when I was a 15 your old kid watching Van Halen Live with my uncle D. We also saw Journey in Concert in the 80’s when Steve Perry sounded like the album’s.
The reason I’m talking about my uncle D is because of the tremendous influence a simple random act had on my life because of him. However As I get older I realize there are no coincidences. So how did this photography thing begin in music. My uncle D left his stereo with an entire music collection in a cabinet in our house for a two month period while he was moving to a new house when I was 15 years old, and he was cool with it being in my room, it also had two giant speakers and a sub woofer.
He had this huge tape cassette collection of music and he had a double tape deck the kind that made copies of tape cassettes as one of the stereo components. I know someone out there is like, what’s a tape cassette and I don’t blame you. This is where the first pirated music came from and how people passed music around to each other in the 80’s and 90’s, on tape cassettes.
Sometimes you would get a 25 times copied version of a band live and the entire sound integrity was gone but that was cool because you got to listen to a live concert from the night before. I know that sounds crazy but there was no social media and only 6 radio stations and five of them were awful and MTV, that just played the same stuff over and over again.!
I had this amazing music collection in front of me so I bought blank cassette tapes from Walmart and I recorded all 350 of his tape cassettes and shared them with my friends, this became tremendous trade currency for other music as well. And that was the beginning of my influence in music knowledge from Van Halen – betovin. This also gave me a moment to listen to music in all of its glory so loud when I was by myself the walls would shake and things would fall off my book shelfs from the loud vibrations, while it was amazing! I am surprised I am not deaf today.
I lived for music when I was a kid. After uncle D’s collection I would buy at least 5 new tape cassettes a week on Fridays, every genera known and I would listen to them while I was outside doing yard work and pulling weeds in 100 degree weather in the south in July on Saturday or I would be listening to top 40 radio, with Casey Casen, If you really want to bend your mind and see a snap shot of a reality we used to live in look up Casey Cason and Wolf Man Jack that was a music psyop. we were in a really weird moment in time. Me and my friends would be like what reality do we live in, we were always listing to music given to us from friends you never heard on the radio. It made the radio feel weird and hollow. I knew authenticity in music when I was kid. I was hooked on music.
The reason Gen x all really liked nirvana is it broke the 1950’ propaganda model of top 40 music and they could not control the music anymore and it got to out of hand for the powers that be and thats a whole other story.
Kinda of like Tic Tok Today. And they tried to make it political, it never changes, non creative people will always attempt to attack creative people they cant help it because they have no internal dialog or creative vision.
Even though I had not started photographing music yet, in the 90’s I learned something from Kurt Cobain about staying true to thy own self.
I have always maintained one rule I wanted to be myself when It came to my music photography and I had that expectation from the beginning ,. I will only photograph musicians whom I believe are authentic human beings and that I had an actual moment to meet or have a coffee and a conversation with or I did an interview with them. Or that I worked for and that’s another story within itself for another day because thats about where I began my music journey. Following this photography discipline I knew who the subjects were and not what critiques or media told me to believe.
I have done my best to maintain that rule and to capture images in the color I see and feel, and not just some polished color photos like boring wall paper like most of the music photographers I see today, giving you over glossy looks that are not authentic to the artist. I turned down a lot of different people I could have photographed or interviewed and I would always be diplomatic and make something up if I thought they were not authentic, I didn’t want to crush people’s dreams because I believe all artists get a chance to figure it out and you cant really be a critique if don’t have contact with artists.
If there is one strong lesson I could teach as a photographer its to pick one discipline you shoot and always stay true to it, one thing you do with photography that is yours..
It could be anything like I am going to take pictures of doors or street photography just commit to never selling it out and having a willingness to say no if it does not align with you and your rules for creating. The rule is no one tells you how to do it and do not compare yourself to others work, the other lesson is don’t ever look at anybody else’s work in your chosen discipline if you can for at least 10 years until you have a body of work, I learned this from one of the biggest rock photographers in music when I began and I listened.. And then do commercial work outside of that photography discipline, there are a 100 ways to make money with photography just not with your one discipline always keep it sacred.
To shoot something as an artist the way you see it is a dream come true while photographing and that is true for me with music., I respect music artists that are ok with you doing it your way because they respect all modalities of art and as artists they understand the relationship between both the arts of image and sound and the symbiosis of this relationship in the world.
It’s all so hard to do photography this way because it doesn’t come with a rule book or a plan and you have to interpret what you’re hearing and seeing in that moment and how that translates and how you want to capture the moment as you know it will be seen in the future and you hope you con-vied a moment. Thats not always playing music as well, its always looking for that iconic moment.
I like to capture music photos in a different way, more of a documentary style as that is the style of photography I have studied and made my own over the years in the majority of my work even outside of music. I also wanted to make the photography look the way it made me feel as well, whether it was an intimate exchange that was filled with amazing advice or was it far away and iconic in a way I always wanted to see it. Or a portrait if that was able to be had.
You have to also know how to adjust for light as well and do it fast to capture what you think is a perfect moment because light and movement is happening very quickly. Make sure you study different speed settings, I wish I knew this faster.
Here is a tip for you and your work if you want to photograph music, just because they sell millions of albums does not mean they’re authentic as an artist or musician. Find all the people who are authentic.
I like raw music, that is real and you can hear the message and passion and it takes you on a journey to get there. I like a lot of new music as well I like bands like London grammar one day I want to share how I came across there music, there the reason I started listing to music again and it’s an epic story. I was so fed-up with the music industry I didn’t listen to music for 4 years. Thats crazy.
Since coming back to music I really found myself liking EDM and all of the cool music coming from ultra and afterlife. I also like Eurovision, it’s a really cool concept for music and it’s so different compared to what we listen to in the United States, I had a good friend named Sally introduce it to me and I’m very grateful.
I also like how music constantly changes and reimagines how it will communicate with all of us audio files. That is where social media is amazing. It’s hard sometimes being both an audio file and being a visual person at the same time. Music creates realities for me so I have to be careful of what I listen too, I always know my mood by the music I want to hear and whether dictates that sometimes as well.
When I lived in LA I always listened to pop or rock because the weather is beautiful each day. And it matches the upbeat energy that is LA. Why do you think so much up beat music comes from LA and a slower interpretation of music comes from the south . Why do you think country music has so much soul and it seems a little bi polar sometimes as well, it’s because that’s the reflection of the weather in the south it’s never the same and you get to experience all the seasons and that can really change your moods and the way you feel each day.
Sometimes while photographing music I’m completely relaxed and I really enjoy the experience and the moment feels like Im inside of a dream. Other times I feel anxious and nervous and a couple of times in the very beginning I was star struck because I had not crossed over to the other side as an artist quite yet and did not understand how it all worked.
It comes with time excepting yourself as a fellow creative and artist and getting over having imposter syndrome, we all go through this, every creative, you will get over it when you stick to your art.
I have some people I want to photography in music again, I just knew that if I wanted to accomplish that task I had to show that I was capable and up to the task and for them to know I truly am one of them and have been on this walk for a long time like many of them and they can always trust that if I photographed them I will always use those images for the betterment of art, history and education.
Uncle D is one of the people in my family that I got to freak out with on what I was doing in the music world and he loved talking about it. He says you’re really doing it! You said you were going to do this and you did it.
I appreciated it because he truly got it! And that has been amazing to share that with someone in my family because we always talked about music when I was young.
I look forward to my next musical experiences. If you get a chance go check out my website where you can see some of my music photography from over the years link in bio and I’m going to start posting about the story’s of these photos and the experiences I have had while making them. Also if you get a chance come over and DM me with cool music you want me to hear Im always open to it. I hope you enjoy and have an amazing day !
He has always loved music and was pretty much responsible for introducing me to all of the most amazing music artists in the 1980’s and 90’s. And thus influencing me to be a photographer.
Then I got hooked on cds , I still have all my cds and that’s something I’m pretty proud of, I have an entire anthology of the 1960”s – 2000’s it’s really cool to still have the versions of these songs I have. I also have demos of tons of different bands. I really enjoy bands first three song demos right before they are picked up by a label and re-recorded its usually the most passionate versions of the songs. Some people collect books I love music. This all started from my uncle D’s music collection and stereo. Make sure you keep your music collection and do you best to get some form of physical copies if you can, you will really appreciate it in the future.