January 2015

First it was the Chicago Sun Times, now it is Sports Illustrated. This week SI fired their whole photography staff. The only thing I can equate this to is if the mid 90’s Bulls fired Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin! The Sports Illustrated photographers were the gold standard of sports photographers. Now they are going to be dependent on freelance guys (not bad for the freelance guys) and they will save a bunch of money from not having to pay benefits any more.

Brad Smith, director of photography for Sports Illustrated, spoke about the move Friday:

“There was a decision made through the company to restructure various departments, including at Sports Illustrated,” Smith said. “Unfortunately economic circumstances are such that it has cut the six staff photographers.” 

Photography has long been the lifeblood for Sports Illustrated, which boasts a number of iconic covers in its archives.

The magazine will maintain a photography department with editors and personnel like Smith still in place. Novak declined to comment about the magazine’s freelance budget. 

Oh well, another era ends. Jim Kirk, publisher of the Sun Times, says that photographs are not important to the newspaper. Maybe the Illustrated part of Sports Illustrated doesn’t mean anything anymore either.

Only I would make a road trip to Minneapolis in mid-January! Luckily there was a heat wave (high 20’s) and a good time was had by all.

The Minneapolis Photography Center asked me to jury an international Music Photography contest. About a month and a half ago, I received a link to a website with about 700 images to scroll through. Each image had a yes and a no button next to it. My job was to narrow it down to 75 and pick three winners and three honorable mentions. It wasn’t easy, as there was some great stuff. But I did it. They also asked me to exhibit some of my images, which they offered to print for me.

So Wednesday I flew up to Minneapolis, was picked up by Orie, the owner of the Center and given a tour of the place. YIKES. What a fabulous place. It is in an old warehouse building and it has three great gallery spaces wrapped around digital and photographic darkrooms with large format Epson printers. A membership gets you use of all that stuff, along with all the printing you need (at a square inch price). The rock and roll exhibit was wrapped around two hallways and a full gallery. It was spectacular. Most of the images were from Minneapolis photographers. They have a great scene up there. While I was there a study came up that stated that Minneapolis had the 5^th best art scene in America (Chicago didn’t maker the top ten) and it showed in the exhibit.

Thursday night before the opening we had a panel discussion about the state of Rock and Roll photography. I was on the panel with two of Minneapolis’s top photographers, Stephen Cohen (who won first place in the contest), and Tony Nelson, moderated by legendary music writer Jon Bream. A lively discussion ensued. When Jon and I got there about a half and hour before the discussion there were a hundred chairs setup, and about 3 people wandering around. Uh-O!! A half hour later all the chairs were filled and standing room was filled also!!

Friday night was opening night. The exhibit looked fabulous. They printed my stuff on a large format Epson printer and screwed the prints to the walls.

The Rock photo exhibit was massive, covered two rooms. They spent all day cooking pasta and preparing salads. When the doors opened people started pouring in. All together more than 500 people walked through the two exhibits! All of the artists that were in the exhibit had name tags with one of their images printed above their name. Attention to detail!!! It was a great time with a great photo community.

In June of 1980, I was hanging out backstage at a Genesis concert when two guys walked up to me and asked me who I was photographing for. I told them I was a freelance photographer. They handed me a card and asked me to come and see them the next day. They were a small merchandising company. When I =brought them my portfolio, they got very excited. One of them picked up his phone and called the band’s manager at their hotel. He asked them if I could join the band on the road for the next couple of days and photograph their next two shows for use on some posters they were getting ready to produce.

This was pretty amazing, as I had never been on the road with a band before!!

So, I packed a bag and went out to the show that night. When the show ended, I was shown out to the bus, and soon was on the road with the band. It was kind of surreal, as I had never been on a tour bus before, and had never really met the band.

We reached Indianapolis that night and checked into a hotel. The next day I met the band in the lobby and we went to sound check. I started wandering around, being a fly on the wall and trying to not get in the way. After sound check, Phil Collins walked up to me and asked me if I played Ping Pong. I told him I played a little. At that moment, a Ping Pong battle erupted!! He was almost professional level, and beat me badly, but it was a great bonding moment. I shot the show that night, and we heade3d for Detroit, where another Ping Pong battle happened, and another show was shot.

The next morning, I flew home, got the film processed, and a few weeks later, I was called to the merchandiser’s office to see the final posters .

My first roads trip, and my first merchandise produced. All in all a great time.

What would the artist be without the fan? While going through some old Aerosmith photos the other day, I came across this image that I took in 1982. There is some dedication to their favorite band!! Those days are gone. One almost never sees this kind of display in 2015! It seems that the audience just sits there waiting for the band to deliver. There is hardly any passion anymore!

That being said, the passion is on full display at Buddy Guy’s Legends this month. Remember, this is January ion Chicago!! The fans start lining up at about 6AM to grab the available tables- first come first serve. Buddy doesn’t come on stage till 10:30 or 11PM. The audience sits there for about 1`0 hours, eating and drinking and listening to music. They all know each other.

The three standouts in this arena are two guys named Mike, and their friend Ron. These guys have been to about 90% of the Buddy Guy January shows for the last 20 years!!!! Some might say that they are a bunch of whack jobs (and they would probably be right) but they are also smart guys with responsible jobs. One Mike is a real estate appraiser, the other fixes heart lung machines in hospitals around the area. Ron is a podiatrist. They not only come to almost all the shows, but they sit down front from start to finish and listen!! (except when they give up their front row seats so that someone else can feel a little joy).

It seems that fans like these guys are in short supply these days. Any artist would be happy to have guys like this around!!!