Once upon a time, I was an active concert photographer. Not by trade, mind you, but by hobby. A serious hobby, but a hobby still. That hobby — odd as it may have been to outsiders — always seemed completely natural to me, combining, as it did, my passion for photography and my obsession with music (especially live music). This site became my online portfolio.

It’s been said that there is nothing constant but change, and the past few years have really cemented that notion for me. When this venture began, my wife and I lived a full-fledged urban lifestyle – living in and fully availing ourselves of the vibrance of San Francisco. Although our jobs were demanding, we were kidless and otherwise “free.” We devoured the city’s music and food.

Fast forward a few years, and we’re suddenly the prototypical suburban family that we once mocked — kids, dogs, commutes, lawns, and, of all things (!?!), neighbors. We go to sleep earlier, get out less, and spend our free time more leisurely (but no less enjoyably). We see less live music. A lot less. And when we do get to live shows, the last thing I want to do is to spend my time behind an eyepiece, fighting for floorspace. The hobby has lost its sheen.

I still take pictures. A lot of pictures. Mostly of family and friends. But I do occasionally muster a photography excursion with friends, too. We went to Alaska to watch big bears catch big fish, headed to Page Arizona to photograph its slot canyons, and vistited Moab to see the arches of the former ocean floor. The hobby died; the hobby lives.

As I write this in April 2011, I have contemplated but ultimately decided not to tear down this site. Although I was never proud of the terribly shoddy hand-coding I did (I am now a far more competent web programmer) and although I haven’t updated the site for over a year, it still stands as a testament and record of a really meaningful part of my life. So, rather than bulldoze, I’ve simply decommissioned it. I’ve hidden the photographs behind a splash page that mutilates Poe to poetically (which is to say “obliquely,” not “artfully”) explain to new visitors that the site may live, but that it shall grow Nevermore.

Still, the archivist in me couldn’t resist keeping below the original “About Me” that I had written several years ago. Enjoy.

Welcome to my concert photography website. If you’re interested, I’d like to offer a few words on who I am, on why I do this (both take the pictures and maintain this site), and on what gear/programs I use. If you’re not interested, the below will bore you to tears.

As I’m sure you’ve surmised from the site’s logo, my name is Adam. (Yes, that’s an f-hole à la acoustic stringed instruments cleverly parading as an “f” across my last name and the sprightly misspelled “photos” and “photography.” In exchange for being actually clever, I opened up Photoshop and pretended.)

By day, I am an associate at a San Francisco law firm, where I am an antitrust litigator. By night/weekends, I am a live music fan(atic). There’s just something special about improvisational music — whether from a jazz trio (my absolute favorite) or jamband — that captures me. I am constantly moved by the ability of several component musicians to form an organic whole not just by reading a musical score, but, even more impressively, by really listening to and vibing off of one another in the middle of improvisational creation. Done well, this leads to some pretty remarkable moments, and promises that no two shows are ever the same. And this, in turn, leads to one of the more exciting parts for me of shows: their collectability.

See, fans bring expensive microphones and recording equipment to capture shows. Then they trade them (“I’ll send you a copy of my Grateful Dead 5/8/77 for your Phish 12/31/95”). Of late, digital distribution via the internet has (mostly) antiquated yesteryear’s bubble mailers sent Pony Express, but the idea is still the same: Almost every show played by every so-called “jamband” is out there in the ether, to be traded or downloaded. And just above the couple thousand studio CDs bowing my bookshelves, stand notebooks full of a few thousand additional discs of live shows by Disco Biscuits, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, String Cheese Incident, Hot Buttered Rum String Band, Medeski Martin & Wood, Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh Quintet, Galactic, Umphrey’s McGee, Yonder Mountain String Band and many, many more.

All this is background, I suppose, to my interest in concert photography — which is mostly accidental. More precisely, with no real plan or ambition to become a concert photographer, the collector/archivist in me simply has gravitated toward concert photography over time. In fact, I never really had much interest in photography. Sure, I took pictures here and there at family gatherings and trips and what not, without thinking much about them. But like most folks, when I switched to digital, I began taking more pictures, including ones of the bands. And it was from a few of those band shots — the purely accidental good one here and there — that my interest in concert photography was born, nurtured by a chance line encounter with a now-good friend at a December 2003 show. I learned more about photography and about manual control over exposure. And my shots improved . . . a little.

Frustration attended that improvement, however, as the limits of point-and-shoot photography became increasingly apparent. Photography is simply the capture of light on some sort of media, whether physical (film) or digital (ones and zeros on a microchip). And concerts present just about the most difficult conditions under which to capture such light. First, there’s just not much of it. Second, the subjects (to the extent they’re lit at all) tend to move — bobbing heads, and singing, and such. Third, the floor tends to move, as do the people around you. This makes concert photography akin to shooting sports in the dark — or, in the sage words of aforementioned friend, “like threading a needle in an earthquake.” The physical constraints of a pocket camera (small light opening and capture box) make it incredibly difficult to take good concert photography under these conditions.

And so the challenge of concert photography appealed to the problem solver in me: “Problem solver, go spend exorbitant sums on a large, heavy, and unwieldy camera, a handful of lenses, extra memory cards and batteries, a bag, and all sorts of other miscellanea. And, oh yeah, time . . . you have a lot of that, right?” I plunked down my money, ran to the first local show with all this cumbersome crap, and, chagrined, realized, “Gee, equipment will not a good photographer make.” Since then, I’ve shot a bunch more shows, bought/sold/re-bought a few different lenses, and developed a fierce appreciation of just how difficult this hobby is.

Then, to come full circle, I realized I’d need a website to organize and showcase my work. I also began to realize that, if I wanted to be taken more seriously as a concert photographer, I’d have to start looking like one, even if I couldn’t shoot like one. Hence this site — Potempkin reality at its finest.

Joking aside, I am tremendously excited about this site, and I look forward to filling it with pictures of all the special bands that graciously keep my feet moving, my head bobbing, and my shutter snapping. I thank the bands and their management for the access they’ve given. I thank all the awesome fans who have kindly scooched over a few times per show, offering me a few minutes in their rail spots. And I thank all of you for providing an audience for my work.

If you have any questions or just want to say hi, please feel free to send me an e-mail (adam at gromfotos dot com). I’d love to hear from you!


MY GEAR

bodies
- canon 30D
- canon 20D

lenses
- canon 70-200 IS f/2.8L
- canon 24-70 f/2.8L
- canon 10-22 f/3.5-4.5
- canon 50 f/1.4
- canon 1.4x extender
- hoya UV filters
- hoya circular polarizing filters

lighting
- canon speedlite 430EX II

bag
- lowepro computrekker AW

tripod
- bogen/manfrotto 3001 B w/ 3030 head