These photos were the result of being in the right place at the right time. My neighbor Lauren was producing this tour and this was the last show. I think that was her role; the music world is a mystery to me, especially how the business side gets done, but she was running the show. We had met in the months (Years? God time is weird) prior, and had neighborly drinks in her back yard a couple times. Lauren knew I was a photographer, and so when her photog bailed at the last minute, she asked if I wanted to come shoot. Free house show in the city, with an all access pass, put on by one of the coolest people I know? Say less, as the kids say.
There was an opener, Coco and Breezy, but apart from the first pic, I didn’t get a ton of good shots of them. I was mainly there for the headliner, LP Giobbi. I shot for basically her whole set. Up and down the stairs, moving around the stage, doing the whole thing. Two cameras, the Nikon with the 24-120 and the Leica, shooting away for a couple hours. I think I took a cigar break in the middle, went outside and burned one, sat and rested my knees. I am not a kid, and my body makes sure I know it.
Lauren and LP also co-founded a non-profit, Femme House, which is worth mentioning because I think this show was a Femme House show. (Edit to add: pretty sure it was).
FEMME HOUSE fosters more equitable opportunity for women and gender-expansive individuals in the technical and behind the scenes areas of music. We are creating the future producers, mixers, engineers, DJs, artists, and executives of the industry by providing education and scholarships, cultivating community, propagating visual representation, and offering professional development opportunities.
It reminds me a bit of ElixirBridge, which was all about bringing in underrepresented groups into my industry, also through free classes. Femme House is way cooler and has a better web site, but I digress. Anyway.
I did make a classic blunder with these, in that the tour manager (not Lauren, some dude) asked for 50 photos, and I dutifully made an edit of approximately 50 photos (out of about 600 exposures). They were all passable, but really there are only so many photos you can get of someone performing; any more and I’m repeating myself and muddying the record with lesser pictures. The 9 here is probably the edit I should have sent, maybe 15 or 20 max.
I sent them 5o, unfortunately, and I never heard anything and never saw them get used even for a social post. I didn’t feel great about it at the time, not because I recognized my mistake, but because I thought they didn’t like the pictures. I spent the last ten months or so thinking, oh well, screwed the pooch on that one, I guess those photos weren’t any good. Then last night I figured the time had come to look at them and see if I could salvage anything for a blog post. I don’t care what they think: I fucking killed it on this one.
It’s also possible that because this was the last stop on the tour that these photos just didn’t matter or get looked at at all. Maybe they’re vastly different from the visual style of the other tour photos and so didn’t get used; I didn’t have time to look for any of the tour press at the time so I have no idea if these work with the rest. Could be a lot of things. Lauren moved away coincidentally around then and we haven’t had backyard whiskeys since, so I may never know. At least now, through the magic of blogging, these get to be seen.
