People // David Garrison // Blog

My second post from a piece I wrote on the way back from SXSW.  A panel on photography got me thinking about the relationship between musicians and the people who capture images of them.  It made me wonder what both musicians and photographers can do to develop that relationship.

Just Being There
There's a trick to being there at the right time for great shots: don't announce that you're the photographer. If you're lucky, people may just assume you're with the band.

I'd certainly come across the idea before that the moment is only captured or experienced by those that are present and watching. It's ingrained in our popular culture - in language, like "those who win are the ones who simply show up;" in movies, from "Being There" and "All the President's Men" through to "Run Lola Run" and "Amores Peros"; songs, from On the Street Where You Live to For What It's Worth; and the written word, from democratised journalism and non-fiction, like Gopnik's Through the Children's Gate, to theatre and fiction, like Romeo and Juliet. But I suppose I hadn't recognised that showing up doesn't always mean the same thing. The line that struck me on the panel was Wright's. "Others announce that they're photographers, the band stops what it's doing, stands in a corner for a couple clicks, sends the person away and goes back to normal, which is when I take shots."

The point is that photography requires timing, a relationship and a degree of comfort. De Wilde, for example, suggested that success is the musician having an almost friend-like trust in the relationship. Getting there for her means capturing a moment they both enjoy. Like a good conversation over a glass of wine, de Wilde's photos are an experience the artist wants to relive. As Beck, for example, was becoming increasingly famous, he started getting shot as a weird star and she built a solid relationship by doing several softer takes that made him realise she appreciated who he was off the stage.

Proposing ideas that challenge an artist's image of themselves, however, is a delicate task that can quickly alter a relationship. Most experienced music photographers bring new ideas to an artist first, working with them to develop the idea and ensure they feel natural in any staged settings and at ease in their natural settings.

Capturing people (never mind musicians) in natural settings and poses takes patience and unobtrusiveness, but not necessarily loads of time or set-up. Natkin described how he often doesn't have any communication with an artist. For example, finding himself backstage with Erykah Badu, he set up rudimentary lighting backstage, motioned her over before a rehearsal, took 12 quick shots and sent her off after 3 minutes. In the course of the shoot, the two didn't say anything to each other, which he suggested was important in that it didn't distract her.

De Wilde tells a story of shooting Built to Spill, a band that doesn't like being photographed and just wants to get on with making music. Told that they "weren't going to shoot for more than two hours," she decided to just start shooting against a mural they were standing in front of to get them "warmed up". With Deathcab for Cutie, she realised that what would best represent their character would be to make it seem an accident that they ended up in the shots. Photographers like Natkin and de Wilde play to the idea that fans want to see inside the creative process and feel like shots weren't planned - a this-is-them-in-real-life-type deal.

What struck me after listening to the panel talk about this was that "being there" can occur whether you're taking candids on the fly or getting an artist to put on an orange furry coat for effect. It depends on what's appropriate for the artist, but, when it comes down to it, it's really about finding ways to either capture people in their natural environment or capture their response to being in a new one.

Key Points 

• Build trust with the people around you. Don't intrude by overshooting, but don't be afraid to just hang around with people until they stop watching you
  
• Discuss your ideas with labels and artists first and then develop them together. There's generally a reason - a "base truth" - that they're uncomfortable with something
  
• Eye contact - in all its variations - is one of the most striking signals of a person's trust
  
• Blur the line between when you're shooting and when you're not. Make shooting candids easy for the artist by not forcing them to "get ready..."