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- Hello and welcome to "Northwest Newsmakers."

I apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience.

I promise this conversation is worth the wait.

I'm your host, Mark Baumgarten, and today we're here to talk about music, live music in particular, and what we've been missing over the last year as the pandemic kept musicians off stages, sent the workers who keep our music venues running home and left fans to stream concerts, or maybe dig into their record collections for a music fix.

But first I wanna thank all of you for being here and encourage you to add your thoughts or questions anytime during our conversation, using the comment section on your right for our Q&A segment toward the end of the show.

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Okay, so besides the fans and the musicians, there is another kind of person who's been deeply impacted by the pause in live music.

Journalists, and in particular, live concert photographers.

Music is, of course, an auditory experience.

But when we think about the greatest moments in the history of live music, so often, it's images that come to mind: Jimi Hendrix torching his guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival, Johnny Cash, flipping the bird at San Quentin State Prison, Beyonce surrounded by a marching band at Coachella.

If musicians are a manifestation of culture and musical performance is the purest reflection of that culture in a particular moment, and I think it is, then the photographer serves as both a witness and a translator of that moment for those who couldn't be there, or those who were there, but maybe had lousy seats But in the last year, nobody could be there.

There actually was no there.

Now, as concerts begin to return to our stages, we wanted to explore what it is that live music does for our communities and for our culture, the impact of losing it for more than a year, and what its return means.

This is not a conversation about the industry or the economics.

This is a conversation about the experience.

And so, I've asked a few of those first witnesses, those translators, those photographers, to join me for a conversation about the missing music in our lives.

Dick Carruthers is the creator of "Icon: Music Through the Lens," a documentary series that is currently airing on PBS.

In this series, he explores popular music through the experiences of photographers who witnessed it all.

In his other films, he's worked with Oasis, Beyonce, Led Zepplin and many more.

Bruce Talamon started his career during the Wattstax Music Festival in 1972, and has since photographed some of the leading figures in soul, R&B and funk, including Gil Scott Heron, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Stevie Wonder.

Chona Kasinger is a photographer here in Seattle who's been front and center for some of the biggest musical events and sweatiest club shows of the last decade.

She's photographed U2, Neil Young, Sleater-Kinney, and she has a great talent for capturing the interaction between performer and audience.

So Dick, Bruce, Chona, thanks to all of you for joining us.

- Greetings.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- So Chona I wanted to start with you because I was, you know, scrolling through your social media and I saw that you actually have been returning to live music.

You shot your first show on July 9th.

I wanted to open up just by asking you, what has it been like to step back into the club and to photograph live music again?

- It's been surreal.

I mean, stepping into Neumos, I live on Capitol Hill, and Neumos is a couple blocks away, but you know, seeing a line at Golden Hour and just the energy of people, walking up to people, asking them, you know, how do you feel?

And that you can just sense it, there's an energy.

And then, as the lights go down and you know, the band takes their spot on the stage, it's just, there is this insane energy that I have never felt before.

I have to say that much.

- Really?

So what was it about the experience, the one thing that you came away from and you were, and you didn't even know that you missed it, that surprised you about the experience?

- Just the small details, like the smell of the venue.

I mean, it smelled probably cleaner than usual, honestly, (laughs) but you know, the lights, the gels, the loud music, just like the bass, you know, kind of shaking your chest, like kinda, about to shut your internal organs kind of thing.

I missed that.

(chuckles) - Bruce, have you been to any shows since we have started to slowly reopen here?

- Actually, no, I've been really keeping a low profile this whole, this whole time.

I'm, shall we say a little older (chuckles) than everybody else here, and I did that, you know, I did that work in the '70s and into the '80s, and then I got into movies and, you know, working on feature films, doing publicity and doing advertisement.

So I've sort of, you know, I've been threatening to get out there again, but the last thing I did was actually something in Seattle, someone had asked me to come up and do some portraits in the live show at a small theater with Digable Planets.

And so, you know, I was able to do that, and that was three years ago and there were something like 2000 people crammed into this venue, which probably held, you know, 1000, and it was standing room only.

So I understand the energy.

The energy is still there, even though that was, you know, three years ago before all of the world stopped.

But I have not and will not be going out.

You know?

I mean, I've actually got a couple of people threatening, you know, to sign me up and hire em to go out, some longtime clients, you know.

But we'll see, you know?

I mean, but right now, I'm staying put.

- Yeah, there's a lot of pent up energy, right?

Everybody kinda wants to engage, but it's also kind of a nerve wracking time.

Dick, have you been, you know, putting your foot in the door of a club?

What's been your experience in the last few months as things have started to reopen a little bit?

- Well, like Bruce, I've not had the opportunity to go anywhere and see a live gig.

Obviously, that's something that I love, but in fact, there's something happening next week, which I declined because we just don't know.

It's changing by the day here.

We are governed by the worst people, and they just, you know, I think it's perfectly kosher to say that and they they're changing.

I mean, we were even gonna try and travel to France and it literally changed overnight, going from the UK to France and stuff, so.

At this point, I'm sort of watching from the sidelines.

But what I think is interesting, hearing what Chona said about going to a gig again, what hasn't changed, even though we've been through this zombie apocalypse pandemic, is that passion, that sort of indescribable magic of like when the lights dim and when the band come on stage and when, and the first chords kick in, you know?

Episode two of "Icon," which is actually on PBS this Friday, it opens with Michael Zagaris describing exactly that perfectly.

It's a great, great opening.

I think even when we interviewed him, I was thinking, yeah, we'll start an episode with that, because he just talks about that electric energy and says, what could be better than that?

He's talking from the point of view of a photographer, who's following the band up onto the stage, but he's kind of like a default member of the band at that point saying, this is the greatest job in the world.

You know, that's actually a theme that runs through "Icon" a lot is kind of being a music photographer is the greatest job in the world.

So yeah, I'm saying the passion and the excitement is still there.

Are we gonna feel differently when we go back into an audience and, and you know, maybe even gonna have a mosh in the mosh pit?

Yeah, probably inevitably, 'cause we've been through this crazy experience, but the passion, the energy, the excitement, that's all still there.

That's not gonna change.

That's gonna come back (snaps fingers) like that.

- So I think, you know, in a later episode, I think it was Amelia Davis said something that, that I want to key on right now.

It's you shouldn't pigeonhole music photography as music photography, she said.

It's much more than that.

It was documenting pieces of history.

And it occurs to me that, you know, in addition to us just talking about you know, what it's like to return to the club, this is a historic moment, right?

This is a moment when hopefully, we're going to be seeing sort of the reopening of our society, the return of live music and, you know, and Bruce has documented history.

I mean, you know, his work at Wattstax is like, certainly that was a moment in American history that needed to be captured.

Dick, I wonder, what can photos of musicians playing music, show us what we would miss otherwise?

- There's something unique, there's something magical.

There's something, I would fail to describe to you now, what it is about a great music photograph.

"Icon," the series, valiantly attempts and heroically fails to define what it is because you can't define what it is.

You can try, you can talk about themes of moments, of magic, of passion, of truth, of beauty, people looking sexy.

I mean, musicians look amazing doing what they do on stage.

The people talk about hearing the music when you see that frozen moment in time, but there is something that synthesizes, a 60th, 125th of a second of somebody on stage playing their instrument or singing, or just in a moment of ecstasy, or just in a moment of something that's happening musically or in a moment of communication with the audience.

Sorry, I'm looking at you, but I should really, there's this nice reminder.

Talk to the camera.

I should know, I'm a behind the camera guy, but anyway, what was I saying?

The, I can't tell you, but what I can tell you is that there are 3000 images across the six episodes of "Icon," and every single one I would recognize, I could tell you who took it and every single one is in there because it just makes you think, oh, wow.

Or look at that.

Or you can feel that, you know?

It doesn't have to be somebody mega famous in a total moment of ecstasy.

You know, the pinnacle being Freddie Mercury in some moment or something, but just even somebody like Bruce's picture of Aretha or something that just, it's just magic.

We discovered this making the series.

We know that people love it.

We know that there's a very strong emotional and visceral reaction to music photography, because it is a frozen moment in time.

And it speaks volumes like a good painting does about the artist, about their music, about their soul, about their presence, about their charisma.

All of that can be contained.

And also everybody that looks at photographs, everybody, everybody that's ever owned an album or a CD is an expert in reading that.

You know, you take a lot of information in straightaway when you look at an image like that, and this was absolutely worthy of a study.

And then, of course, we discovered that everybody that does this amazing thing for a living are articulate, passionate, warm, approachable, slightly crazy people.

And, you know, what could be better than hearing them tell their stories?

- So one of the stories that, I mean, I'm just, you know, Bruce, I just have to tell you that I am, I find Wattstax to be a really fascinating moment in American history.

I mean, you know, Stax Records Stage Festival.

You know, years after the Watts Riots, seven years, I believe, as a way to sort of engage and uplift a community, that is really where your career started from what I believe.

And then over the next decade, you captured so much of that culture.

And I wonder when you're living the history, when you're capturing it with photography, are you, what's your responsibility in that moment, do you think?

- Well, you know, you've gotta understand this is, as Amelia Davis talks about in this show, and as Dick has pointed out, you know, this is visual documentation, all right?

Because don't forget, most of these people are gone now, or they're older and they're not playing.

I mean, except for The Rolling Stones.

I mean, you know, Jagger's still going at what, 77 or something like that.

But, you know, I mean, you look up and you see, you know, Freddie Mercury's gone, Bob Marley's gone, Gil Scott Heron's gone.

So, you know, what we have, or the band is broken up, Earth, Wind and Fire's gone.

You know, they're broken up.

Maurice White is gone.

I mean, hell, you start talking, and what do they say?

There's more behind you than ahead of you, you know?

And you understand that you do have a responsibility to create this visual document.

I mean, that was my, that was one of the reasons that I got into photography.

I was on my way to going law school.

Okay?

And, I took a sharp left turn because I bought a camera on a foreign study, you know, at the beginning of the foreign study trip.

But you know, what we've done is, we've left a visual record for people.

I have folks come up to me and say, you know, my parents, you know, danced to this song.

And they're seeing, here's what the guy looked like.

Or I've had "Soul Train" dancers come up to me and say, wow, you know, here I am, 40+ years ago.

And so for me, there's an element of archivist, you know, archival because you were basically a historian and you're also having a damn good time.

Okay?

There's nothing better.

And the music, I mean, you know, you got the best seat in the house, okay?

You can go anywhere, if you've got a backstage pass, and it's, one of the things I tell mid-career photographers or even new photographers, I tell them that you gotta pay attention because it's all around you.

The images are there.

You just gotta shoot it.

Now you gotta, this is not playtime.

You know, you gotta be a professional.

You know, these people, all of these people that are in this show, these people are professionals.

They know their craft.

They know their tools, you know?

I brought along- (camera flashing rapidly) An old, an old one, you know?

This is an oldie but a goodie.

This is a 1975 Nikon F2, okay?

It weighs a ton, you know, and I shudder at thinking about, I used to carry six of these around my neck and shoulders, that I'm even standing upright is (laughs) is a plus.

It's so... People have, in the past, dismissed music photography.

It's only recently, and you know, not to promote the film like, oh, and this is extra, extra important, but it is important because it does recognize people like Henry Diltz and Baron Wolman and people who aren't here.

I mean, Henry's still here, but Baron's gone.

You know?

And Marshall's gone.

And all these people who photograph this stuff, and it's more than the notion to do it.

You know, you have to have timing.

You have to know when the guy's gonna jump.

Or when he's gonna throw the stuff, because you've seen it, and now, they're cutting everything down.

I mean, Chona, what's, do they have time limits now?

You know, do they have- - Yeah, typically, it's first three songs, no flash.

- Jesus.

- Some festivals, they get a little hardcore, and first two songs, or maybe this one song.

Like when I shot U2 a couple years ago for the New York Times, it was like, songs five through eight or something like that.

So it really depends, you know, but if you go into a smaller club, typically, it's less of a, it's a less strict policy.

But festivals are definitely clamping down and making photographers sign kind of insane contracts and all kinds of crazy- - Yeah.

- Something that we explore in episode two of "Icon," Mark, I don't know if you've seen it, I mean, it's almost comic, the three songs, no flash rule, like where it came from, because everybody's got a different sort of historical story of where that came from.

But everybody, 201 just says, this is nonsense, you know, that we are the professional photographers are allowed three songs, whereas everybody in the audience has got a 4k camera on their mobile device can shoot the whole gig and will post it all over the media.

And the photos will not be as good as the ones that Chona or Bruce will take, or a professional will take.

So there isn't even any logic to it.

It's just about control.

And that level of control doesn't benefit your artists.

I mean, that's very much in a nutshell, the argument that's presented in "Icon," you know?

And where, controlling photographers to that degree doesn't benefit you.

A lot of the older photographers that had complete access, people like Bruce and the people he mentioned, Baron Wolman, Neil Preston, Terry O'Neill, that would, Garrett himself, they were trusted to take a thousand photographs and only put out the 60 that portrayed the band in the right light, in the right way.

Obviously, you don't take pictures of them doing something goofy or where they don't, you know, it's just obvious, right?

But you don't do it.

But the idea of somebody with a camera around their neck that might kind of pap you, paparazzi you and just publish something, all the stars now are very paranoid about that, because people have got cameras to hand, and it's professionals like these guys that are bearing the brunt of that paranoia.

Shame on you, artists.

- It's a little nuts.

It's a little nuts out there.

I mean, I'd like to just say this.

Besides, you know, the fact that we're professionals, you know, I've gotta say, and the photographers do bear some responsibility, all right, but it all gets back to that nasty little word called content.

You know, nobody knew what content was 30 years ago, 40 years ago.

But, you know, people see that that can be monetized.

People see that people can make money from that.

The copyright laws, I mean, one of the things I would say to photographers or people who want to consider photography, you've gotta protect your images.

You've gotta know your rights.

You need to copyright your work.

There's certain things that all sort of go into this little ball besides having a camera and shooting it.

There's a lot of folks walking around with cameras, but there's only a few photographers.

I mean, someone might say, well, that's rather arrogant and it is, but there's a little truth to it, you know?

And you're talking about in this particular thing that you're going to see over these next six episodes, these are working photographers.

These are people who, you know, most of us didn't have to have to have a second gig, okay?

We were photographers.

You know, we diversify, but you know, there's a little bit of a satisfaction when you realize that you've got a body of work and you've been able to make a living, and a very decent living at it, because people do get excited about the photographs.

They start, if you've got a book, they start going through the book and they start humming and singing those songs and telling you, as they say, a little bit too much information about where they were, who they were with and what they were doing in the back of that car while they were listening to Al Green.

But, it's like Amelia had said, Amelia Davis, who is the head of the Jim Marshall estate, she says this is historical.

I mean, and what music photographers do is capture a moment, I'll just say this.

Eric, Dolphy the great jazz saxophonist, all right, who died at 27, he has this great line where he says, "When you hear music, it's in the air.

"You can never capture it again."

Well, that's the same with the photographs.

That's the same with those moments.

You know, Neil Preston has, I think it's Jimmy Page gulping down, shall we say, some spirits?

But, you know, he was backstage and there was just this moment and he saw it and it was gone.

And you know, Bob Marley, Bob Marley's gone, you know?

I photographed him over, you know, over three years.

But you know, he died at, I wanna say 36, 35 and 36.

And so, sort of he's frozen in time, you know?

Or you look at Morrison, or you look at, now, you know, John Lennon or so many of these guys.

And there is something to look back on, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

- So what I'm curious about is, you know, what I'm hearing, and then, like, that is a great kind of overview, I think, of maybe how the industry has changed quite a bit is the attempt to capture a moment now, it feels like there's a lot more in the way of actually getting that done, whether it's restrictions on the number of songs that you can photograph, or even just like the open relationship between two artists, a photographer, and a musician, being able to sort of be in each other's orbit, right?

And so when we're talking about sort of capturing moments in history, and I mentioned this earlier, right now, we are in this historical moment where, I mean, you know, artists are breaking out onto the road, like scheduling club dates.

There is this sort of like moment that we've never experienced before.

And I know that Chona, you have a lot of passion right now.

I know you've been to a few shows in the last month.

And I believe like the post that I saw on July 9th was, editors, please, please, please hire me to go and shoot shows.

I love it.

It's the best thing ever.

So my question for you, Chona, is how are you going to approach capturing this moment?

And what are the barriers and what are the strategies for really being able to crystallize this moment in the way that Bruce is talking about crystallizing moments of decades past?

- Yeah, I mean, you know, in terms of a sustainable career, these days, music photography is a little different than it was decades ago.

Editorial rights aren't what they used to be.

But you know, that shouldn't be a barrier for folks to capture music if they really want to do that.

You know, like there's the access issue, which like, if you can send a good email, if you have some like good bylines, and you get in there, usually, venues understand or a band will throw you a bone and let you shoot the show.

I've been doing music for 10 years now, photographing music.

And, you know, just as a virtue of that, I've kind of been embedded in the scene here.

And, you know, a lot of my friends are music writers and they're musicians, and my partner's a musician.

So that's been a really good way of kind of keeping my ear to the ground in terms of what's happening in Seattle, with music, 'cause there is a scene here.

I think that every city has its scene.

Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper, but yeah, tour opens are happening.

Most of the shows happening in Seattle are smaller local bands, but Sleater-Kinney's doing a tour open next month in Spokane and hoping to go shoot that.

But yeah, you know, I started out shooting concerts and that turned into photographing portraits behind the scenes.

And now I just photograph people from all walks of life, not just musicians.

So like what Bruce was saying, you know, it's very diminutive to call, you know, I don't know, it's not like a four-letter word, but I feel like a lot of people in their head in 2021, when they hear like, you're a music photographer, you're a concert photographer, like that's just very, it seems very niche, but I feel like shooting music is the best way to cut your teeth if you're gonna get into photography period.

It's hard.

- Hmm.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, you know, Bruce was talking about certainly, not having to lug around six heavy cameras.

There have been technological changes and there's been, you know, I mean, I think one of the things that was really an aha moment from the series, Dick, was the ways that photographers in the pre-digital era would manipulate their equipment in order to create effects.

And now, we don't have that anymore, like Vaseline on the lens, things like that.

- Yep.

- What's been lost and what's been gained in the conversion to digital?

From Dick, from your experience, talking to a great number of photographers, what's your take on this?

- There's quite a good debate of film versus digital, as we call it in episode six.

So we kind of gather a lot of different opinions about it.

It springs to mind Henry Diltz, who's a legendary photographer from the '60s onwards.

When he first discovered digital, he says, look, there's this thing and it just works out the aperture and it does the focus for you and it works it all out and you can just snap, snap, snap, and it's great.

You know, and his youthful enthusiasm for it was really infectious, and I like that, because he's embracing it.

There are obvious technological advantages.

You can shoot a lot in bursts, it's much more immediate.

You don't have to go to the dark room to see what you got and there's downsides.

If it doesn't matter how many pictures you take and you're not having to change film reels, you're a little bit more, I wouldn't say careless, but like you're more blase about it.

I think anybody will tell you, any photographer will tell you and any kid can try it for themselves, they can shoot a load of stuff on their phone or on a DSLR.

So you load up a film, you've got 24 shots and that's all you've got, you think about every shot a lot more, a lot more, right?

Polaroids are these unique moments in time that only exists just on that one Polaroid.

You know, I love taking Polaroids and giving them to people.

There's a whole section in episode six about Polaroids.

In fact, Chona's friend, Pooneh Ghana is quite famous for using Polaroids and doing that.

So it's a kind of a retro thing, but I'm trying to answer your question.

There are, as opposed to going off on one, there's a lot, the technology is good.

The sensors are great.

The sensors are great.

The quality is really good.

The low light quality is really good.

I miss grain.

I'm an old film guy.

You know, people, my age loved film grain, and the texture that you get from film, which you can't get from digital.

You you can have a plugin, you can have those effects and yes, there's probably, there's probably a plugin for Vaseline on the lens.

There's all sorts of electronic stuff to make stuff look retro.

But what the interesting thing about that is is why are the software guys writing these plugins to make stuff look retro?

And the answer is because they've seen all the same photographs that we have that are totally cool, all the ones of Maurice White and Mile Davis and Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie, and they're really cool, they're really amazing.

In fact, they really hit you when you see them on album cover, in a book, on the cover of a magazine.

When you see them, they mean something.

And they're grainy, they're low light, so on and so, so you wan to sort of pay an homage to that, you wanna replicate that.

Something, I mean, there's photographers in the series that say, I hate digital.

It's kind of like this brittle thing and it can break.

And there's other people that said, oh, I had to go with the flow because you know, you have to go digital now, you can't do old school.

And there's a couple of old school people that say, no, hate it, will only ever shoot film, I'm a purist.

So we present the different arguments there.

I think my last point about this, what's great about digital and what's great about the fact that the people that make smartphones have incorporated really good cameras, even though they've got tiny little lenses, you know, really good software as well that does do all this stuff for you, is it makes the love of photography and the love of capturing and freezing a moment in time, be it of your cat as much as a musician on stage, it makes it accessible.

The bar, the barrier for entry has dropped down to like, everybody can do it.

I've got faith that the cream will rise to the top, so the great photographs will get out there.

The great photographs, whether it's they'll get lights or whether there'll be on the cover of a magazine or they'll find their way into a book, but the great photographs will still be appreciated.

And so that will happen anyway.

So it's great.

I love the fact that everybody, trillions of photographs are taken every day.

Great.

More power.

- So yeah, so Dick, you're, I mean, so much of your series, and Bruce, when you were shooting, there was a supply, there was a different supply and demand dynamic, right?

There was a lot of demand and there was limited supply.

And you know, now we're in an era where the supply is just out of control.

I mean, there's just, there are, like you said, Dick, there are just photos upon photos and I wonder, and this is a question for Chona, do you feel like, I mean, what are your thoughts on this sort of sea of images and you, in your position attempting to offer up a unique perspective?

I mean, is it a greater challenge?

Is your work in some way devalued by this, by the supply that's out there?

- Yeah.

I mean, I think, you know, you can talk to anybody shooting concerts, you're always kind of up against people who are working for Getty or Reuters or, you know, usually Getty, but you know, the need for like live coverage of music, unless it's like a tour open, you know, it's difficult if you're trying to actually get in there to photograph it, because usually, these publications already have their bases covered because they have their people that just go do the one thing.

And then, you know, and they're usually, they're fine shots.

They're like a shot, the shot maybe, but you know, it makes it hard for anybody else really.

So that sucks.

- Hmm.

So Bruce, you were saying before that a lot of people have cameras, but it takes something different to be a photographer.

What separates a photographer from someone with a camera at a show besides the fact that you got in for free?

- Well, I think probably, just knowing your equipment, I mean, it's interesting to hear, you know, I mean, okay, I have embraced digital in my other life, working on movie sets.

You know, I mean, you download everything now instead of, you know, like I said, anybody, remember this?

This is film.

- I love that you brought props.

- 36- - I appreciate it.

- Oh, we have props.

36 frames, all right?

And that's another reason why you had to carry six cameras, because you are.

There you go, Dick, I see that, yeah.

You had to... You couldn't run out.

The worst thing in the world would be, Mick Jagger's up in the air or Marley's doing whatever he's doing, and then you run out of film.

You know, it's like game over.

That was, I mean, digital is nice, where you can just keep on shooting, right?

But there's something about figuring out how to do on a manual camera, how to do a triple exposure.

Jim Britt, the great Motown photographer, who's actually not in the project, but I've known him since '75, did fabulous work on Marvin Gaye.

And he photographed, he did a series of exposures, multiple exposures in one frame, okay, that captured from the song to the bow, okay, where Marvin goes through the whole thing, and then at the end, he bows to the crowd.

Crazy, insane, wonderful photographer.

The guy's a professional.

He knows his equipment.

So I mean, you know, and that was the way that you got the shot.

You know, I used, I cribbed that from him years later or not years later, months later and, and did something with a Sly Stone, you know, the same way, a triple exposure.

And it's something a little bit unique, it's something a little different.

Now I will say this.

One of the things I'm hearing is that it's sort of hit or miss.

If you do, I mean, I've worked for 10 years for, or at least had a past from a music magazine where I worked for that music magazine.

Okay, so I was published every two weeks.

I mean, if it was David Ruffin on his solo career at a club, and then the next, that was on a Tuesday, and then, on Wednesday, you did Gil Scott Heron at the Roxy.

And then you did Nina Simone and Miles Davis on Friday.

And then you did Earth Wind and Fire, and who the hell was it?

Lenny Williams on Saturday, then you started again, Pointer Sisters next week.

So, and then what happened was the record companies recognized me, they saw me, they saw the work, they saw it was published, and so then they started calling.

But of course, this was before the record companies started demanding that you sign buyouts, okay, which are this nasty little piece of paper where they say, okay, so you did this shot, this shoot for us, and now we wanna own everything.

Lord have mercy.

I don't know how music photographers make it these days.

You know?

- So Bruce, I gotta break in, 'cause we're actually kinda getting near the end of our conversation.

- Of course.

- We've gotta get somewhere.

- And I don't mean to be complaining.

- Hey, that's all right.

That's all right.

You're just sharing, Bruce, that's all.

- Uh-huh.

- It's good.

Yeah, so we in the audience question portion of the conversation.

I've got, fist, a question here for Chona, which is, one of the viewers is curious about your experience as a woman and a person of color in the industry.

And I mean, is it, yeah, do you feel like that's a barrier to you taking the photos that you want to take?

What's your experience?

- You know, I don't have other people's experience.

I have my own, so I can speak to what I've experienced.

You know, I don't know.

I feel like my career has been one big Hail Mary and it sort of worked out, but, you know, in terms of being a woman, I can't really, I have no idea what assignments I didn't get in my life because of the way I am, but I'm grateful for the ones I have gotten, and I've gotten this far, yeah.

- All right, thanks, Chona.

- I would say a lot has changed in the industry in the last 10 years that I've been doing this and, you know, recently getting to be at Neumos, and seeing this band called Black Ends with like, you know, a Black girl fronting the band and she just like ripped.

It was amazing, and like seeing how diverse, I think, the audiences have gotten over the years, it makes me really happy, you know?

'Cause I'm used to, when I was starting out, used to being like maybe the only girl there, like at the Neumos, sure, whatever, but yeah.

- Thanks for that.

What advice do you have, maybe this, we'll ask this one of Dick.

What advice do you have for the youngest generation of music documentarians?

So maybe maybe one or two pieces of advice for folks that are getting into the industry.

- Be inspired, go with your gut.

Oh, and it sounds a cliche, but it's true.

You know, I've never had a job.

I've got this far just kind of, you know, a little bit of blind self-confidence and a little bit of ambition and theoretically, some skill just to propel yourself forward and put yourself in those situations.

I think just shoot, as we were saying before, the digital revolution, the equipment isn't a barrier anymore.

So go out there and do stuff.

And the other thing that I think I would say is the idea that you have to do something really different and really shocking, striking to get people's attention, that may or may not be true to separate it from the crowd or the massive other stuff.

But if we're talking about music photography, there's sort of those standards, those looks, those angles.

There's classic things about music photography, which you can replicate.

If you're not reinventing the wheel, it's still going to be a brilliant photograph.

You know?

So, you know, I don't think you have to go out on a limb, but I think my advice would be the standard advice from somebody older to somebody younger, which is believe in yourself, just do it.

If you're good at it, people will notice whether that's playing ping pong or sailing a boat or taking great photographs, just keep doing it.

And if you're good, you will succeed and it will get noticed and have faith in that because it's true.

It is absolutely true.

Everybody that, we did 128 interviews for the series and everybody that's made it to the level that they have is because they've taken the knocks on the chin and they've carried on and they've just done their thing.

They've done it their way and they've stuck to their guns.

It's always the people that stick to their guns that succeed.

- Hmm.

- Definitely.

- All right, we've got a room for one more question I'm gonna direct this one at Bruce, and I'm going to ask you Bruce to be succinct in your response here, but we have a viewer asking do the bands treat photographers different now than they did back in the '60s and '70s?

And I know that you're not doing what you were doing in the '70s, but I am curious about, this is the most important relationship, right, between these two artists.

And did you, have you seen it change throughout your career?

What do you think about this question?

- Well, you know, there was a level of trust 40 years ago, that people, you've gotta understand, in some cases, and especially where I was photographing with Black music, hat was a time when things were marginalized.

And so to see a young African-American photographer coming in to photograph Earth, Wind and Fire, or whoever it was, they sort of perked up, and when they understood the magazine, Soul newspaper, that's what it was called, they gave us time, they gave us, I mean, I remember one time, Donna Summer giving us four hours after her publicist had said we had 20 minutes.

We had set everything up like it was a serious photo shoot, right, with lights and the whole deal.

We used to drag, I mean, I had a poor little Fiat 128 and I would stuff a nine-foot backdrop out the window, and had my equipment and photograph like it was a production.

I would say that there has been a shift from management.

They look at photographers, sort of the askance now.

They, if you don't have an assignment, they're not necessarily going to be helpful.

So you have to figure out to get your, you know, a good assignment.

But one thing I would wanna say is, to photographers starting out, have adventures, pay attention, it's all around you.

You can come back with some grand, grand photographs.

And you know, watch the series.

When you see a photographer's name up there, maybe see if they've got a book.

Check out their images.

That's one of the great ways to learn, you know, because there are photographers, I mean, you look at Terry O'Neill's work.

You can go from Terry O'Neill to Bruce Talamon to Neil Zlozower or Neil Preston, Henry Diltz.

You know, they've got serious bodies of work, all right.

And Jim Marshall, Jesus.

I mean, you really gotta pay attention and look at the stuff and go to these galleries 'cause now people have their work in galleries.

And I'm optimistic.

I've stopped telling photographers or asking photographers, well, does your school have a plumbing department that you could go learn a real trade?

I've stopped that, but, you know, I mean, you've gotta believe in yourself.

My father did not have charitable things to say, when I announced that I was not going to law school, and that I was going to become a freelance photographer.

He finally got it before he died.

He finally understood what I was doing and what I wanted to do, and I think any of the photographers that you talk to.

I mean, the two of us here, you talk to Dick, you know, I mean, I'm sure that you'd get a similar response.

You know, you've gotta believe in yourself.

And like I said, great adventures.

- So since we got the two answers from Dick and Bruce on advice for folks getting into the industry, Chona, can you just really briefly close us out and just give us your wisdom on the matter?

- Of course.

I think that love for music is a really great place to start.

And you just jump off of that, but, you know, to echo what Bruce is saying on photo books.

I didn't go to school for photography.

I just looked at photographs, you know, like look way back and examine photographers, like look at the photographers that Seattle has, like Alice Wheeler from the '90s, you know, took like some of the first photos of Nirvana.

And of course, Charles Peterson and Lance Mercer.

Start there.

Just go back.

- Yeah.

All right.

Okay.

So we're out of time.

I would love to talk to you all for hours and hours, but unfortunately, I have other things to do for work.

You know, it's been a really fascinating conversation and has definitely made me even more excited to get back out to see some live music.

Although my phone is gonna stay in my pocket.

I am not a photographer.

(group laughs) Dick, Bruce, Chona, thanks so much for sharing your time with us today.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- So before we go, I wanna a moment to thank our members and to remind you that Crosscut is a nonprofit reader-supported news site that relies on the support of our community to ensure that our events and journalism remain free for everyone.

Thank you so much to everyone who donated to this event.

If you would like to make a donation or become a member, visit us at Crosscut.com/support.

And to our series sponsor, Waldron, thank you for making today's event possible.

And lastly, I hope you will join us at our next Newsmakers event on August 16th, where we'll be talking about the impacts climate change is having on our outdoor sports and adventure industries with University of Washington Director of Climate Impacts Group, Amy Snover.

Thanks again to Dick, Bruce and Chona, and to all of you for hanging out with us today.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Go see some live music and we'll see you next time.