Many photographers collect cameras, lenses, and other bits and bobs and seem to never have the right kit necessary to be content. Not me. My Hasselblad 500 C/M, purchased piece by piece while working as photographic assistant jobs fifteen years ago, is as close to perfect as possible.
My recent adventures in scanning have been fruitful – I have unearthed some of my favorite old portraits, like this one of my dear friend Mike.
WFD standing near the politicians’ float at Chinese New Year in NYC back in 2010.
A quick post for tonight – my old friend Brian from Bleeding Through, a great metal band from Orange County, California, live on stage at Hellfest 2003.
No trip to Morocco is complete without spending some time at Jemaa el-Fnaa, the Mosque at the End of the World. Jemaa el-Fnaa is a large public square serving two separate functions – during the day, Jemaa el-Fnaa is occupied by roving street performers, monkeys and their trainers, dancing cobras and other spectacularly wild characters. At night, the square fills with food vendors and hawkers attempting to steer would-be customers to their stalls. Our favorite feature? Easily the fresh orange juice vendors. Try the “melange” – ooh la la! Photographers roam the square offering to capture tourists’ and locals’ experiences alike….
I recently posted some old photos from Terror’s set at Hellfest 2003. Like the Terror photos, these Converge photos were made on film and scanned by a cruddy mall photo shop a few days after the fest wrapped up. Uggggh. Film was incredibly expensive to learn on…and shooting live photography was a costly adventure regardless of how far along the curve the photographer was. Things have changed. I walked away from concert photography right when things were getting much easier and cheaper. I used to hate running home from a shoot, running to the darkroom (or the mall), processing, scanning…
And now for something completely different – Well before I started assisting photographers and spending all of my time in the darkroom I pushed my way into photographing as many metal and hardcore bands as possible. Photography was a fantastic point of entry into hardcore – I had a reason to be there even when I didn’t know anybody and my cameras (and the work that I was producing) opened a lot of doors and started many friendships that I still have to this day. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Joel Dowling Photography. 