Due to two unfortunate events on April 20th, 2021 & April 27th, 2021 and effective immediately I will no longer be providing any artistic services (photography or otherwise). This includes music venues & musicians.
If you have my art (photography or otherwise) I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me out. If you would like to obtain my past work for your use then you’re out of luck. If you would like to hire me (which didn’t happen nearly as much as I would have liked before April 20th, 2021 anyway) again, you’re out of luck. I will no longer provide photography or graphic design for exposure. People die from exposure every year. I will no longer provide photography or graphic design for trade either. Same as exposure, I can’t put food on my plate with either exposure or trade. And last but not least I will no longer provide photography or graphic design for pay too.
Unfortunately for me it didn’t happen that much before April 20th, 20212 but it will definitely not happen now. I can not afford to hire a lawyer to compose a contract in the event that my art is ripped off like in April of 2021. I don’t have enough mental energy to waste worrying if some musician is not going to ask and/or credit me for using my art and when confronted they threaten to sue me. This disappoints me immensely because I loved going to live music events, meeting bands, taking pictures, etc but after almost 35 years of doing this it has come to an end.
I only promoted shows for 4 years in the early 90s but in that time, excluding Forbidden Dimension, The Imagineers, Pal Joey and Nomeansno I felt like a glorified babysitter. Now with the events of April, 2021 I feel like a total rube for trusting musicians with my art. The bands mentioned above as well as BC/DC, Circle The Wagons, Tankhog and a few more that I can’t presently remember, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. If you hired me in the past I thank you too from the bottom of my heart.
I am still on the fence as to what I will do with my hundreds of rolls of musician negatives and digital files. Part of me says destroy them all, like I recently did with my musician prints. And part of me says I should try to sell the negatives to try and recoup the thousands of dollars I have lost by mostly volunteering my services. Part of me volunteering is the musician’s fault and part of it is my fault for saying yes. I’ll update what will happen with the images later this summer. I will tell you that if live music shows started today I would not attend, because of how hurt I feel over the events of April, 2021. Maybe with time and distance this will change but presently I do not want to set foot in a live music venue for live music ever again. This will most likely change. For the moment I’ll stick with doing my artsy fartsy photos.
Thanks for reading this piss in the ocean and take care.