Selected Music Images (1968-2023)
I think that if I was given a choice of careers I would have chosen musician over photographer, but the truth was I wasn't a very good musician, although I certainly gave it my best shot. I remember playing autoharp in my elementary school music class, and when I was accepted into New York’s Highschool of Music and Art, I was required to play an instrument. I chose the french horn (an extremely difficult instrument to play) and was so bad at it that the teacher had me fake-play a number of the songs during our public recital. Still determined to have an instrument I could call my own, I took up classical flute in college (it being an easy instrument to carry around), but after three years of constant practicing, I realized that Carnegie Hall was not in my future, even with ”practice, practice, practice”. But the truth is I can keep a pretty good beat when playing percussion in impromptu jam sessions, but that's about it for my musical career.
The first photograph I ever had published was of Country Joe, taken at the Fillmore East in 1968, and I have been shooting musicians ever since. Despite my lack of talent in playing an instrument, and the inability of the camera to actually capture sound, there has always been a place in my heart in photographing musicians, the music scene, and the communal interaction between the player and their audience.
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