Magnum Photographer Dennis Stock sadly died today.
Stock started his career as an apprentice to Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili and joined Magnum in 1951. Although best known for his intimate portraits of James Dean he was also a prolific Jazz photographer taking some of the most iconic Jazz portraits in history for his book Jazz Street. in 1968 he founded the production company Visual Objectives and shot several documentaries but returned to Magnum to serve as president of Magnum’s film and new media division in 1969 and 1970. Stock generated a book or an exhibition almost every year since the 1950s.
“Art is a well-articulated manifestation of an aspect of life. I have been privileged to view much of life through my cameras, making the journey an enlightened experience. My emphasis has mainly been on affirmative reactions to human behavior and a strong attraction to the beauty in nature.”
I have to say I was a little apprehensive about going to a festival on my own, I envisaged myself standing in amongst thousands of people and taking to no-one for three days. Luckily my pessimism was proved wrong and I had the best festival experience I have ever had.
Pitchfork is a fairly small festival but it just gets it right in every way (I am told the only downside was the drinks queue, but I managed to avoid that). Within 10 minutes of arriving I had befriended an incredibly cool photographer from Yahoo Music called Taleen. After seeing her disappear into the photo pit for Yo La Tengo I knew I should probably get my press pass sorted, which luckily I did.
The next morning I dashed to a photography wholesalers and persuaded them to lend me a lens, which was tricky as I didn’t have the required $2000 spare on my credit card as a deposit… gulp, but they were kind and let me loose with one. Photographing a festival was one of the toughest things I have ever had to photograph. You are limited to the first three songs, and combined with ever changing light and the scrum of the other photographers, if you aren’t used to photographing fast you will be after.
Seeing bands from the photo pit was incredible, you are obviously closer than anyone else, but with a zoom lens you view the band from an almost intimate perspective. I tried to photograph everything, and although that meant missing the rest of a set, I saw many more bands than I would have done.
My partner in crime, Taleen
For some reason Taleen and I had also been given VIP passes and so we got to spend our time backstage. It was very different to what I was expecting. Obviously better toilets and free booze (although I do not recommend Sparks, alcoholic-lucozade certainly keeps you going, but you feel very strange in the morning). Taleen loved approaching people in bands and set about talking to anyone and everyone, I’m awful at remembering who people are and this worked in my favour as I didn’t become a blithering idiot. I did manage to maintain my ability to say daft things at the worst times but I think (hope) my accent allowed me to get away with it.
There were a few bands that I was more excited about getting to see so close, rather than taking their picture, and Grizzly Bear were definitely one of those. There was a brief panic when my camera ran out of battery (amateur, I know) but I had also taken my Pentax film camera and bizarrely those ended up being the photos I like the most.
Flaming Lips was certainly an experience.We knew they would be the hardest to photograph as the scrum would be the most competitive. Taleen wasn’t really up for it but I was too curious to miss it and dragged her over. The first set of photographers had been let and and there were hundreds of them squished into the few metres the photographers get. We were held back and told that everyone was only getting one song. We obviously missed the ‘one song’ that included Wayne Coyne coming out onto the stage through a backdrop of a woman with her legs open in his trademark bouncy ball and out onto the crowd. However it was a great sight to see and when we finally got in I was thankful that we only had the one song as the previously courteous photo pit had turned into a feeding frenzy with elbows being thrown left, right and centre. Although I am not a huge Flaming Lips fan, they certainly put on a show and the atmosphere they created was the perfect way to end the festival.
If you are more interested in reading about the bands than my daft experience see below:
It was wonderful being back in Chicago, I managed to have nearly two days either side of the festival and was taken to the most amazing places to eat by my Chicago-an friend Kevin. Hopefully the line-up for Pitchfork will be as good next year and I can hotfoot it over there again.
The rest of my photos are in this fancy slideshow below:
We went to see Why? at Cargo on Monday night. They were absolutely brilliant. I was determined to take a roll of film and so casually manoevered (gently pushed) my way to the front.
Their photographer was there, trapped by the side of the stage and in some jammy swapping I managed to get myself at the side of the stage. I’m really happy with the photos. The rest of my Why Photos are here
I was incredibly lucky to be allowed access to the print room of one of Britain’s leading newspapers to do a photo essay.
The print room is being shut down and the whole process is being transferred to digital so it was an amazing experience to be given free reign to roam the area and take pictures.
I took hundreds of pictures and am in the process of putting them together in a narrative form, but here are a few of them.
Well we’ve just finished our penultimate day. It’s actually going to be quite sad to leave. It’s been an amazing experience and I’ve met some phenomenal people. I wont say too much about the film as I’m too superstitious, but I’m going to write a shoot account when I get back home.
Anyway I got some of the photo’s I’ve taken developed, the lady who developed them fiddled with them so a lot of them look slightly dark or slightly light.
We have a day full of general shots tomorrow, one interview and our final execution, which is a sad way to finish the shoot.
Welcome to In One Eye, Out the Other! My name is Charlotte and this is my blog for anything and everything that I love/like and an ongoing portfolio of my work.
I'm 26 and have spent 20 of those years in education, studying a large range of things from Media Technology to Graphic Design, Photography, Motion Graphics, Web Design, New Media and most recently an MA in Documentary.
I'm a filmmaker and photographer and I watch, write about and programme documentaries.
I live in London with a very large old cat, Henry, who is quite partial to ham sandwiches.