I took a photo class in high school because I needed an art credit and my mom used to be a professional photographer so I had access to some equipment. I sucked at it. I never followed any of the directions. We had to shoot like textured patterns and make sure we followed instructions exactly right. I ended up getting a C or something. I think my photo teacher was very surprised to see me the next semester. In photo 2 you had a lot more freedom. I was involved in the punk scene in DC so I just started shooting bands. I was a lot better at shooting bands than I was shooting still life. From photo 2 on I got all A’s in photography. The book that really inspired me was a book called Banned In DC. It was a photo documentary of the DC punk scene from the late 70’s to the early/mid 80’s. I had the book because of my interest in DC punk, but I still look at it now because of the love of photography it inspired. I had my favorite photos in the book, but it wasn’t until I read Henry Rollins’ book Get In The Van that I realized who my favorite photographer was. Every time I saw an image I loved in the book, I looked down and saw the same name: “Glen E. Friedman”. I started buying his books and following his career. He started out shooting the Dogtown skaters when he was a little kid. He then started photographing punk bands in LA. He got the bands into some of the skater mags and helped expand the LA scene nationally. He then was introduced to Russell Simmons of Def Jam Records by the Beastie Boys and started shooting a lot of Def Jam’s stuff. The guy was at the beginning of everything. Aggressive skating, hardcore and hip hop. He was a legend.
Several years ago I decided I wanted an image out of the Banned In DC book. It was so inspirational to me, that I needed to own a piece of it. I emailed the editor, Dischord Records staffer Cynthia Connolly. I told her about how this book had changed my life and how I needed to own part of it. I knew she sells prints of her photo work and I asked her if she could print an image from back in the day for me. She told me she didn’t but that she could give me the email of some of the photographers in the book she still kept in touch with. She gave me a number of emails, but I never even looked past the first name on the list: Glen Friedman. I emailed Glen and spoke with him. He gave me a price for a print that I was really in no position to afford, but at the same time he told me that basically I pick from any image in his books. I briefly considered printing a shot of Black Flag, as they were really the band that introduced me to punk, but really I only had one image in mind. It was Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat jumping into the crowd at the old 930 Club in DC. Anyone who knows DC punk history knows this shot from memory.
Minor Threat was the band that made it easy for me to say no to drugs and alcohol. My friends started drinking when we were about 12 years old. I always felt like kind of a loser for not drinking. I just new that my family had some alcohol problems and that I had a tendency even then to push things too far. I just didn’t want to go down that road. When I found out about straight edge, it really changed my life. I felt like I could hold my head up and belong to something. That same idea of belonging to something is why I got out of straight edge in the end, overly aggressive assholes acting like it was a gang and not a personal choice, but when I was in high school, sXe meant the world to me. I still don’t really drink and I think that is the only reason I can do what I do. If I went out every night and got drunk, I would have done even less with my life than I have now.
So this image represented so many things to me. It was in the book that changed my life, by my favorite photographer, about the DC scene and of the band that started the straight edge movement that kept me on a positive path. This image was my favorite shot not just in Banned In DC, but in all of Glen’s books. This image is what music should be all about. This image is iconic, and I had to own it. This image changed my life.
After some convincing I some how borrowed the money to pay for it from my parents. To this day it is the most valuable thing I own. My computer is pretty close, but I talked to Glen recently and he is selling this photo now for significantly more than I paid for it 7 years ago. Put it this way, just the frame cost me over $300. The trip getting it was almost worth it in itself. I went and picked up the image from Glen in NYC. It was the first time I had been to the city I live now by myself. I remember walking down from the midtown hotel I was staying at into the Lower East Side to get my friend a tattoo at NYC Hardcore Tattoo because it was owned by Jimmy of Murphy’s Law and Vinnie Stigma of Agnostic Front. Just walking around the LES made me realize I had to live in NYC. There were like punk kids everywhere. This was home to me. Maybe it is just me, but it seems like the LES has changed a huge amount in just the short time since I visited back in 2002.
Anyway, after realizing I needed to live in New York, I met with Glen. He hung out at my hotel for two hours just talking to me about the early days of punk and hip hop and introducing me to bands that I never knew about. He is a bit more radically left wing than me, but he was an amazing guy and taught me a lot. At that time I only wanted to be a band photographer and that was all I shot. His first suggestion to me was to buy at 20mm lens. Ironically that 20mm lens was what made me get away from bands and start shooting portraits. I think that the event photography I do now is a pretty good mix of shooting hundreds of portraits a night with some of the same elements of band photography, the environment, the lighting, the movement… Since that day Glen has always been there to answer questions for me and help me with my work. Usually he hates it and is my harshest critic, frankly I have been afraid to show him my event work as I am sure he would think it is total bullshit. (If you have a Google alert for yourself Glen, look around let me know what you think…) But his harshness has helped me a lot and I really appreciate it. I am glad to have one of my inspirations just an email away. I go back to his books a lot and just look at the energy he gets and I am still not sure how the hell he does it, and makes it look so easy.
Punk rock changed my life. Glen’s photos changed my career. The trip to NYC changed my location on the planet. And Glen’s words have changed my work. This photo means everything to me.
With all that said, you may be wondering why the hell I wrote this super sized post. The reason is that one of my favorite websites, Boing Boing did a 4 part interview with Glen and (another favorite artist of mine) Shepard Fairey. They did a show together and Boing Boing talks to them about a lot of things. They talk about Shepard’s Obama poster, how Shepard and Glen started working together, the history of Dogtown, punk rock and hip hop and about Glen’s Liberty Street protest. Tn the interview posted below Glen talks specifically about the photo I own around the 5 minute mark. This was really exciting for me and I decided to share it with you. You should put the time in and watch it, it is sort of amazing Actually all the videos are all super interesting. You can see the other 3 parts of the interviews here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpeXYSDt2jM&feature=channel[/youtube]
Needle Sized Art