In Search Of A Style With Siouxsie & Budgie
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
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| Siouxsie & Budgie - circa 1981 |
When Colt introduced
its single action Colt Army Peacemaker in 1873 it revolutionized the “art” of
killing. If you had the money to buy one (and many did) you could compete with
anybody and more so if you knew how to use it. I see that gun having a parallel
with the proliferation in the 21st century of good digital cameras.
I believe that the Colt evened out the playing field in the 19th
century and now in the 21st century the same has happened with
cameras and how they affected photographers who use them.
When I began to work
for Vancouver Magazine in the late 70s and Les Wiseman (the writer) and yours
truly (the photographer) started covering rock concerts (local and from abroad)
for the In One Ear column, we discussed how we could do it differently.
Our experimentation
happened at the Commodore Ballroom, the Smilin’ Buddha, Gary Taylor’s and UBC’s
Sub Ballroom.
We quickly figured out
that even though we were given access to shoot in what we called the media pit
(right next to the stage floor) my pictures looked like anybody else’s or not as good.
At the time there were
two choices. You either used what we called a head-on flash (like the one in
the picture here) or you shot very fast film that was pushed to higher ratings.
The problem with the
above is that the methods used to place photographs in a magazine or newspaper
was photo-mechanical and not digital. If there was no separation between a
musician’s head and the black background the picture could not be used. In fact
pictures surrounded by black were editorial no-nos. Art directors loved low contrast.
The flash up close
minimized the dark background. But it was difficult to impose a personal style. The
only style involved was how important your magazine was so that access became
the style. I attempted to use slow shutters (1/8, ¼ and slower) when using the
flash so that I would get some sharpness but some ghosting blurs at the same
time.
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| Les Wiseman & Siouxsie Sioux |
Soon even that was
passé and Wiseman and I narrowed our approach to personal interviews with the
band members or the lead member either in their hotel or at sound check in
their dressing rooms. I would bring a very heavy studio flash (it was a
QC-I000) and a couple of heads. This plus the light stands and a seamless paper
were all heavy and Wiseman had to help.
At the time the record
companies were all powerful and one had to kowtow to the “Record Rep”. We were
nice to them and they soon liked our exclusive coverage which involved Wiseman’s
exceptional writing style. Wiseman believed in doing copious research (an in an era before
Google) this meant many trips to the library. Soon we were sort of able to call
the shots. We would, “If we cannot get access back stage or at the hotel,
forget it!”
The bands that Wiseman
picked were all based on his extremely snobbish (thank God) tastes. Many times
nobody knew about them and after the In One Ear Column was out we garnered lots
of hip prestige in knowing before anybody else a band’s rising fame.
The pictures you see
here of Siouxie Sioux I believe I took in 1981. Wiseman says the hotel shots
were taken in the concrete one on the corner of Granville and Helmcken which I
believe is now called the Chateau Granville. He reminded me that somehow we had
to go up stairs with my heavy equipment.
The lights were
expensive but the camera I used was the one you see here and or a more modern
one called a Pentax Spotmatic-F. At the time I liked to use extreme wide angles
and got close to my subjects. I particularly liked a 20mm. The film was Kodak
Technical Pan which was slow (25 ISO).
For the concert shots
I still used the slow film and a slow shutter. My lens would have been the 55mm
here or an 80mm Komura.
Until a recent past I
taught at Focal Point and did two years at VanArts, downtown. The former closed
its doors three years ago and VanArts fired me as they said that I was not a
good fit for their school.
I remember once when I
told my students that it was virtually impossible to shoot band at concerts in
an original way. One particular female student was extremely aggressive and
told me I knew nothing and had no experience. She told me that my rock swirls
(the slow shutter ones) were simply bad photography.
I tried to stress that
the single most important aspect in personal photography was to develop a
personal style. I called the personal style the Holy Grail of photography. But
it was to no avail and I see now, more than ever pictures of performing bands
(sharp, well exposed, bright colours, etc) that are boring, banal and all
pretty well look the same. In fact if you are in front of a band at a concert
with a very good camera I guarantee that the pictures you will take will look
like somebody else’s. In 1982 having the pictures "turn out" was not a sure thing. It is now a sure thing but that does not necessarily include style.
In the group of
pictures here you can see the descent from the interesting (Siouxie playing the
devil with her hands) to the sofa shot with her drummer Budgie to the ordinary
concert pictures I took at the Commodore. You might note that I had access to
one side of the stage so I got profiles. To me the only saving grace of these
pictures is Siouxie’s fishnets.
A Goth Banshie
A Goth Banshie
