Today, I’m celebrating 10 years of photographing concerts. Ten years!
Okay, technically I lost a little time during the pandemic. There weren’t many concerts to shoot for a little over a year, unless you count that drive-in tribute band show I covered. (It was a weird time, we all remember.)
But ten years ago, on August 14, 2013, I showed up at The Independent in San Francisco with my trusty Nikon D300S and shot my first real concert, in a real venue, with a real paying audience. That first show was a band I’m terribly fond of to this day - Seattle’s own Ivan & Alyosha. (If you haven’t heard their music, I’d suggest firing up Spotify or the music service of your choice and fixing that situation, pronto. They’re great.)
I had already photographed a few well-known artists who showed up at my workplace - Shawn Mullins and one up-and-coming young country artist named Taylor Swift (!) to name two - which formed the rough beginnings of a portfolio, but this was my first time showing up at a place that didn’t allow professional cameras without permission. I requested my photo pass through the band’s management, because who else was I gonna shoot for? Luckily they said yes, and put me on the guest list. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Ten years later, I’m still not sure what I’ve gotten myself into.
Tim Wilson of Ivan & Alyosha performs at The Independent in San Francisco on August 14, 2013.
Those photos from my first show were… let’s be honest, they were not great. The club wasn’t brightly lit, my camera was low-end, and my skill was even lower-end. There wasn’t a photo pit, so I had to line up early and pick a spot by the stage and stand there all night, and just hope the angles would work out in my favor. It was the beginnings of my education at the school of hard knocks, which continued with many more lessons at The Independent over the next year as the promoter’s gracious and kind marketing team allowed me to continue shooting shows on behalf of the venue. And with each show I used my learnings from the previous shows and got a little better at using my camera, a little better and finding angles, a little better at seeing what was happening in front of me.
It was not at all easy, and the late nights were often exhausting, but it was always exhilarating.
Shooting concerts is an adrenaline rush like none other. Being close to the bands, seeing up-close how they worked together, having a euphoric crowd at my back… it’s hard to explain how that feels. I still get goosebumps sometimes when I’m in the pit and a band is going off right in front of me and the crowd is singing and screaming behind me. Though now days there might be tens of thousands of those fans behind me instead of a hundred. Goosebumps.
It’s been a wild ride these last ten years. I’ve had the chance to shoot some of the biggest names in music, some of which I still can’t believe would welcome little ol’ me in and trust me to make them look good. I’ve dodged stage divers, learned to deal with finicky artists and their reps, and narrowly avoided breaking my gear on a couple of occasions. I also put together my first public exhibit of my photography.
The community of concert photographers in the Bay Area and beyond is a welcoming one and I’ve made a lot of friends in the pits over the years. There’s still times where I’m intimidated by the talent I’m standing next to in the photo pit - people who have been doing this for far, far longer than I have, well-known in their own right, whose pictures show up in newspapers and magazines and art galleries all the time. They remind me that I still have room to grow as an artist, and bigger opportunities yet to pursue.
Ten years is a long time, but also just a beginning.
Here’s to the next ten years and beyond, wherever this crazy ride may take me.
Ivan & Alyosha Photo Gallery - August 14, 2013:
