Just came across a site where people were talking about how some of Forrest's and my photos of Gen from the Genitorturers on BlueBlood.net at http://www.blueblood.net/bb_97.html were some of the best they had ever seen done of her. We originally were shooting them partly for magazine cover, only a certain company with the initials HT was cranky about it and didn't want to credit who the cover hottie was on the cover. It didn't help that the magazine's designer photoshopped Jesus suffering on a cross in the background of our photo. It also didn't help that the publisher sent the cover to said christian company for approval at Eastertime.
Over the years, I've shot members of bigger bands (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn, Manson, etc.) but Blue Blood was the first US magazine to put The Genitorturers on the cover. And we had seen them a lot over the years and I liked them as people and I liked their band and I liked their shows. So I felt invested in that relationship and that shoot. Not that Gen was horrible or anything, but I really went to bat for her and it ended up being a real problem that I insisted she be properly credited with our photo. She was pretty upset at the time and I promised her that her photo would not appear without her name and her band's name. Most photographers would have just let the magazine do whatever it wanted and later said they had no control over what the magazine did, no matter what they promised. My word means something though. The photos from that shoot have only appeared where we could credit her, so I kept my word, but it took a lot out of me. If someone went to bat for me like that, I would probably send them a fruit basket or a rare Blue Blood back issue or something.
The whole thing was kind of a nail in the coffin of doing rock photography for me. I was initially thinking of doing another one of the Blue Blood girls for the cover of this particular publication, but, when I saw Gen was coming through LA, I thought it would be fun to shoot her again and get her on the cover instead. Forrest and I had already shot Szandora, Yolanda, Batty, and Fetus de Milo for the cover of this mag. Yes, they photoshopped out Yolanda and Fetus' facial piercings to please HT, but shooting those covers was a lot more fun.
Seeing people I don't know on the net getting excited about the shots Forrest and I did of Gen made me think about some of what I like creatively about rock photography. Mostly we enjoy shooting people with intense personalities and the rock world has a lot of those.
I'm feeling pretty positive these days. I like that I have cut down on some things to reduce drama, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because there are people who would like to make cool things a pain.
Should I go back to doing more rock photography?
