Black Lives Matter, Pittsburgh, May 30
Band portraits
Most of the band photography I’ve done is of live shows, but in the last few years I’ve done some band portraits, which is becoming more interesting to me. A few weeks ago I photographed Take Me With You, a melodic post-punk band based here in Pittsburgh, in a rehearsal. It was interesting to observe the dynamic of musicians when they’re focused on each other rather than an audience.
We also did a series of group shots in and around their practice space, even venturing outside on a freezing cold night to get some shots under an old vine-covered bridge.
Here, their focus was outwards, towards the camera; the body language more guarded. The light was interesting, though.
Punk the Capital documentary
In 2012 James Schneider got in touch to ask if he could use some of my photos in a documentary he and filmmaker Paul Bishoff were making about the early DC punk scene. Every few years I’ll get a flurry of these requests, but this one ended up being more impactful than most. James wanted to get scans of negatives so he could have the option of using details from shots. He arranged with Ian Mackaye at Dischord to get the first couple of years of my negatives scanned. I’d thought I’d already printed all the good shots, but after seeing the digital scans I realized there was a lot more to be done with that material. This has set me on a larger project (which I need to write about more here).
When Punk the Capital premiered at the American Film Institute in June I got to see the film and reconnect w/ some of the people I knew back then. Now James is taking his film on the road. He’ll do a screening and discussion in Pittsburgh on October 8 at the Union Project with special guest Jeff Nelson (Minor Threat drummer, record label owner and graphics whiz extraordinaire).
A Dischord residency
This past week I’ve been in residence at Dischord house in Arlington, VA., spending about 12 hours a day scanning my old negatives.
I could’ve found a suitable scanner in Pittsburgh, but it seemed more fitting to go back here, to the source, or one of them. Unlike so many DC punk landmarks, Dischord house is still there, looking much the same as when I first saw it in 1981 or 2. There’s something really wonderful about that.
I won’t finish scanning all my negatives on this trip; I’ve got one more notebook to do, plus some odds and ends that didn’t scan well.