I always look forward to writing my year-end retrospective come December, but I have to admit: this year I’ve been dragging my feet. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve felt unusually short on time this year with the compacted holiday season and all the demands being made of my time (hello, house projects!), or if it’s because this felt like a quieter year for me with regards to my music photography. Either way, blogging has felt like a little bit of a chore lately, which I guess is why I haven’t done much of it since the last year-end retrospective. But honestly, I absolutely love looking back on these posts and would hate to miss a year, so here I go, dusting off the ol’ keyboard for a bit.
As I said, this last year has been a little quieter for me with regards to music photography. Some of that has been intentional. After 2018 I was feeling a little burned out, a little discouraged by some of the industry nonsense that can be so draining. Death by a thousand cuts and all that. So I pressed pause for a bit and didn’t shoot more than a few shows in the first five months of 2019. Things picked up in June only to go cold in July and August, with summer vacations and a string of rejections forcing me to the sideline once again. But I’m not going to complain; the time away was welcome, and it helped me gain more focus than I’ve had in the past.
Late last year I wrote a blog post exploring how it’s helpful to shoot things besides music to help one get better at shooting music, and during my hiatus from the photo pit I used the time in part to practice what I was preaching. For me, that meant shooting youth sports. Having kids of a certain age means ample opportunities to capture a lot of action without a lot of restrictions or pressure, and I savored every minute.
Shooting sports is a little like shooting music I’ve found. You don’t get to control your subjects, and sometimes can’t pick the best angles to shoot from. You need to know your subject thoroughly so that you can anticipate what they’re going to do and compose the shots accordingly. And there’s tons of opportunities to capture the little unguarded human moments in between the action, which I absolutely live for. Unlike shooting music however, there’s almost more light available than you know what to do with. (Not that I’m complaining.)
I also did a bit of travel, visiting Alaska for the first time. Nature photography has always been particularly hard for me (I’m not patient enough I guess) but I had a lot of fun trying to capture mood and scale in a place too beautiful for words.
Sports and travel/nature photography aren’t something I’m experienced with, but they scratched an itch that helped rejuvenate my love for music photography, and taught me some valuable lessons that will certainly help make me a better photographer in the years ahead. Here’s to more stretching in 2020.
But what about the shows I did shoot? Well, there was a few less of them this year than in previous years, but one benefit of being more focused was that I tended to be more selective about the artists I did photograph. There weren’t many shows this year where I went home feeling like I had wasted a perfectly good evening. I also had the chance to shoot a few repeats from previous years, and discover a few new favorites along the way.
Sometimes I pick shows to shoot out of a sense of nostalgia as much as anything, and this year I had one of those shows: David Gray at the Fox Theater. It would not be an overstatement to say that David’s music, beginning with his breakout LP White Ladder, was the soundtrack to my early years living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I remember discovering White Ladder at the Virgin Megastore in downtown San Francisco (R.I.P.), and I quickly became a huge fan, devouring all his records. One of my first dates with my wife was to see David play at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, at the peak of his popularity, and sadly that was the last time I saw him live until this year.
When he released new music and announced a tour that would take him through Oakland, I had to be there to get photos. And I was pleased to find that he hasn’t slowed down in all the years that had passed since I last saw him. If anything, I was caught off guard by his joy and exuberance. He’s impossible not to love!
David recently announced that he’s coming back to play the Greek Theatre in 2020, celebrating the 20 year anniversary of White Ladder, and you can bet I’ll be there again.
Perhaps the show I anticipated most this year was also the smallest show I shot, and it wasn’t even the headliner I was interested in. In November, a young Irish rock band known as Inhaler made their debut in the U.S., playing six shows around the country as the support act for fellow U.K. rockers Blossoms. Inhaler is noteworthy because it’s led by Eli Hewson, son of Bono - yes, that Bono, the one from Ireland’s loudest export, aka U2. You may have seen Eli before, posing on the cover of U2’s most recent album Songs of Experience, where he looks like a spitting image of his Dad in earlier years. Eli and his schoolmates formed a band only in the last couple of years, but they have a knack for songwriting and performing already, and with Eli’s pedigree you can bet there are high expectations already forming for these young men. While waiting outside the club before the show, I met one woman, a die-hard U2 fan, who had flown in from Portland just to see their short set. Despite making it clear that their ambitions are nothing short of reaching the levels U2 has, they wisely seem to be determined to grind and not ride anyone’s coattails, as one might expect. Here’s hoping their debut album lives up to the hype, and the boys achieve all the success of that other Irish band.
Eli Hewson of Inhaler
Speaking of debuts and firsts, I had a few firsts of my own this year. I shot in a new venue, the brand-new Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors, when I covered John Mayer and The Black Keys’ individual tour stops there. It’s an absolutely beautiful and modern venue, and the staff running the place is unbelievable. It’s quickly becoming my favorite place to shoot a show.
And how about The Black Keys? Somehow I had never seen them live, and that was a clear mistake. I may be a little lot late to the party, but let me say, these guys are legit. I went home and bought two of their records - on vinyl, of course - after being blown away by my experience in the pit that night.
The Black Keys
One of my favorite things to look for during a show is the little unguarded moments when artists can relax and enjoy the moment, throwing one another a look or a smile. Maybe it’s because of something surprising that happened, or maybe it’s because deep down they’re still just fans of music, and need to pinch themselves once in awhile to remember that they really do have the best job they can imagine. Whatever the reason, I live for those moments and try to catch them when I can. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney both gave me little glimpses of that unguarded joy, and I’m a bigger fan of them for it.
Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys
Patrick Carney of The Black Keys
In another first for me, I shot my first festival this year. I’m not sure how it took me so long to shoot one - it certainly wasn’t for lack of opportunities - but this year the stars aligned and I decided it was finally time to dip my toes in the hot, dirty pool. I got my feet wet with a festival known for being a bit more casual, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco. Hardly Strictly, as it’s commonly known, is a free festival held in Golden Gate Park every year for the last 20 years thanks to the generosity of a wealthy benefactor who has since passed on, though his legacy remains. For three days artists from a variety of genres, though leaning heavily on Americana and Country, parade across five stages throughout the park, playing for tens of thousands of fans of all ages. I covered the second day of the festival, and the headliner that night was a bucket lister for me: Robert Plant of Led Zepplin. I don’t know how many people packed in to see him perform with his latest incarnation, The Sensational Space Shifters, but it was a lot. Too many perhaps - people were crammed into the fenced-in meadow like cattle in a stockyard, not to mention the small army of photographers like myself who were confined to a narrow space between two barriers halfway to the soundboard position. But it was worth the challenging conditions to see a legend perform.
Robert Plant
And better yet, I caught Robert on another (smaller) stage sitting in with the legendary Buddy Miller just prior to his headlining set. A total treat.
Not sure why, but it seems that most of my highlights for 2019 involve artists from Great Britain, so let’s keep that trend going. In October I had the chance to finally catch soulful Irish rocker Hozier at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, and was more than a little impressed. His latest album Wasteland, Baby! is brilliant, and he’s equally brilliant live. I wouldn’t hesitate to see him again in the future.
Hozier
I’ll wrap this up with a little thought about meeting artists. When I tell people that I shoot music, they usually assume that I’m hanging out with the bands backstage and becoming besties with them or something, but the truth is far less glamorous. At most shows, especially the bigger ones, you show up, do your job professionally, and go home early. The band stays backstage and most photographers aren’t getting all-access passes, so there’s no opportunity to meet the band. Your interactions are primarily with the band’s managers and publicists, not the bands themselves. So once a band reaches the level where they’re playing bigger rooms, it’s hard to meet them and find out what kind of people they really are.
Joseph
But once in awhile you get the chance to meet an artist, and a brief interaction with them is enough to remind you that there are some really good people up on those stages who appreciate the work you do. This year I had a couple of those interactions. Back in October I had the chance to meet the women of Joseph after their show at The Fillmore, and I was blown away by their kindness and gratitude for the coverage they had received from the outlet I was working with. It was one of those moments that energizes me to keep going and do even better work.
Then, in November I took a little family vacation to Universal Studios in southern California, and on our second day checking out Harry Potter world, I looked up from my phone and saw one of the best modern rock drummers Darren King, formerly of MUTEMATH, standing right in front of me. Last time I saw Darren play, I was photographing MUTEMATH’s set opening for Twenty One Pilots at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, which I detailed in my 2016 Year In Review. Naturally, I’m a huge fan. Of course, I had to introduce myself.
I felt a little bad interrupting his time with his wife and kids, but despite my intrusion Darren was nothing short of friendly and accommodating. He was everything his reputation made him out to be.
And so I’m ending 2019 with a jolt of encouragement and enthusiasm for shooting music that I had been lacking at the start of the year. I seriously can’t wait to get going in 2020 - it’s going to be another incredible year, hopefully full of firsts and new challenges. Here’s to a great 2019, and an even better 2020!
