Ready for Their Close-Up

Philly's best concert photographers talk shop.

by John Vettese

Tiffany Yoon

There once was a time when Philly's live music fans and their cameras didn't easily mix.

In the '90s, the heavy-handed Troc crew confiscated even the most basic Kodak disposables from concert-goers. Restrictions were equally draconian at larger venues like the Spectrum, where the press covering the show up close was more obvious — a frustrating thing to see from the stands.

Lisa Schaffer remembers that feeling from a 2003 White Stripes concert at the Tweeter Center. "I had really bad seats," she recalls. "And I watched these photographers walk right in with their bags and I was like, 'Why am I not doing that?'"

With this goal in mind, Schaffer set to work and became one of Philadelphia's most prominent music and concert photographers. But in recent years, it's become a less exclusive club. Venue security is increasingly lax about people bringing their smaller, personal cameras to shows, instead going after advanced models with interchangeable lenses, meaning anybody with a point-and-shoot and a desire to push to the front of a crowd can now snap once-unattainable photos.

With the summer concert season rolling onward, and outdoor festivals like June's Roots Picnic and next month's Philadelphia Folk Fest bringing greater visibility to attendees with lenses, I convened a roundtable of some of Philly's ubiquitous concert photographers to discuss the current state of what we do.

Michael Alan Goldberg of Philadelphia Weekly has a significant photographic presence on the alt-weekly's Make Major Moves blog. He catches details that often fly by — set lists, marquees, broken drumsticks — and arranges them in narrative, magazine-style galleries (he's also shot for Spin and Blender). "You can get caught up in getting the perfect picture of the guy singing," Goldberg says. "But that doesn't tell the whole story."

Schaffer occasionally shoots for Pollstar, but developed a strong niche covering the Philadelphia folk and roots music scenes surrounding venues like The Fire and The Grape Room. The local concentration propels her candid style. "I don't just focus on the stage, I end up getting to hang out with my subjects, more so than I would with a big band," she says.

Tiffany Yoon's lively work, most often seen on local music site phrequency.com, takes in the whole scene — musicians, fans and surroundings — in broad shots, putting the viewer in the middle of the action. Her images of lo-fi duo Reading Rainbow at Kensington DIY space The Ox were taken from behind the band, looking out at the room. "When I'm in the crowd, I can see there's so many people there," she says. "But if I was to take a shot from [in front], you'd just see Rob and Sarah. You turn around, and you see everyone."

Even with an influx of casual shooters at shows, all agree that concert photography is more than just having a camera and being in the room. Photo students might recall the oft-cited Robert Capa quote, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." Take that a step further: Even if the fan gets right up in an artist's grill with his iPhone, he still needs to know how to frame his shot, or the result is a sloppy picture where a microphone is covering half of someone's face.

Michael Alan Goldberg

"You have to have the eye for it," Goldberg says. "You can see a million decently exposed photos, but they're not well-composed; they don't tell the story."

Yoon encounters overzealous first-time shooters who don't understand simple etiquette — things like giving your fellow photographers room to work and sharing the space, especially in more crowded rooms like Fishtown's Kung Fu Necktie. "I get angry," she says. "But then I remember I did the same thing years ago. You can only learn by shooting more, so I try not to judge."

Conversely, Schaffer takes umbrage with overly competitive professionals she encounters at festivals, with ostentatious lenses and tendencies to shove her out of the way. "And then you look at their photos, and they're all shit," she laughs.

So there are drawbacks on both sides of the club. Goldberg thinks a decline in film goes in tandem with a decline in patience. "I'll never say that digital is better than film or vice versa," he says. "But the way film worked, it was a slower process. ... You grew into it a little more."

The capability to shoot five frames per second nurtures what I once heard a band's manager describe as "spray 'n' pray" photography: busting off hundreds of photos of the stage in a short time span, hoping something usable comes out. Truly good photos require more care, attention and immersion.

But immersion can come at a price. You shoot concerts because you love music, but you lose that ability to enjoy concerts as a music fan, a civilian.

"I'll go to see one of my favorite bands, and I'll take a lot of photos," Yoon says. "I'll get home and my roommate will ask, 'How was the show?' And I don't even know what it sounded like. I was just looking the whole time."

Lisa Schaffer

For that reason, Goldberg purposely does not bring his camera to certain concerts. "And then I'm into the show, and I see That Shot. And I'm kicking myself. I'm thinking visually, no matter what."

Schaffer hates not having her camera on hand; she always carries one with her, even if it's a Polaroid. But she also says she enjoys concerts more when she's shooting them, to our collective surprise. ("I never thought I'd hear that!" remarked Goldberg.)

But Shaffer's reasoning makes sense, considering how and why she shoots.

"I feel like I'm very intimate," she says. "I'm watching closer, I can still hear."

And she can get up as close as she wants.

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)