The Blog

Well last night I had the craziest live music shoot to date. I was at the TD Garden to shoot Black Eyed Peas, Ludacris, and LMFAO. This is a venue I’m not used to and a completely different thing than the House of Blues or The Paradise. Just getting into the venue was a pain, but completely worth it. There were 12 credentialed photographers, who were all mostly nice people. The funniest part was while we were wating ot get our passes, this irate woman came into the office because she brought food for the Black Eyed Peas and it got thrown out cause obviously it could have something in it that was bad. She was screaming in my ear like it was my fault, and reeked of alcohol. Awesome. Below are some photos of the Black Eyed Peas.

See the rest of the Black Eyed Peas photographs as well as the Ludacris and LMFAO pictures here… http://scotteisenphotography.smugmug.com/Music

Went out for another rush-hour trek for some “underground musicians.” I was successful! I found three of them. One at Hynes Convention Center, one at Park Street, and one at South Station. I was riding on the train and I heard some violin music. Naturally I got off the T to investigate this music.

The station was pretty empty, except for a few commuters. I thought it was kind of fitting that there was someone playing violin. I have always found music from the violin to be tragic. I’m not sure why the station was tragic to me, but maybe it was because of the few commuters in the station, most looked pretty depressed. Tragic. Then of course there’s me, being all sketchy in the station with my cameras. I waited till a break in the music, went over to the guy and placed 2 dollars in his case. I asked him if I could shoot some photographs of him and he said sure.

I then hopped on the next train and went to Park Street. There is always someone playing music there. It’s nice for me and this project. I didn’t hear anything immediately when I got off the train and was sort of discouraged but I did some investigating and there was a guy on the lower station deck. He was one of the best subway musicians I have ever heard. He was playing such happy music and he seemed to be in a whole different world than these grumpy commuters. One song I remember the best was “Blackbird.” He had people singing along. His music was making every one of these commuters days just a little bit better. It was great.

Lastly, I made my way to the busiest place around, South Station. There was a guitarist sitting in a corner when I got there. I wasn’t sure if he was done playing or not, so I stuck around for a bit. Eventually he started to play again and I was pleased. I asked the guy if I could shoot some photographs of him. He was pretty hesitant but agreed. As soon as I picked up my camera he shouted “NO VIDEO NO VIDEO!” I’m not sure why he thought I’d be shooting video, so I reassured him it was just still photos and he said “Okay.”

So far I’ve photographed seven of these guys. I’m aiming for around 12 or 15 for the final product.

Well I had the pleasure of hanging out with some awesome bands last night. I really enjoy New Found Glory’s music as well as just chilling with them. They have one of the raddest (if not the raddest) tour managers around, Jenny Douglas. They played a killer set and had the House of Blues going. I’m only showing photos from NFG here, but the rest of the photos can be seen on my website as always.

Anyways, you can find the rest of NFG photos or any of the photos from the other bands at the following link… http://scotteisenphotography.smugmug.com/Music

Well yesterday was my grandmothers 93rd birthday! How crazy is that. I can’t ever imagine living through so many things. She’s still going strong too, which is awesome. I really wanted to get a nice portrait of her, so I came back from Boston to go to her birthday party. Anyways, I am pleased with the result.

I did some more work on this project today. I decided to make the trek out into the MBTA system during evening rush-hour. It’s so damn difficult to go around with lots of camera gear during this time. I had been working on a different project earlier with my friend Mark Tang, and we were riding on the green line together. He was switching trains at the Arlington stop so I decided to get off and see if there were any musicians doing there thing there.

Luckily there was a very interesting guy on the bridge between tracks. I stood there and listened for a while. He was a man in a electric wheelchair, he had one leg, and with that one leg he was playing a tambourine in a similar way you’d hit a bass-drum pedal. He had a guitar in his hands, and he was singing. On the floor next to him was a harmonica. After about two songs, I approached him and asked him if I could take some photographs of him while he played. He was a really nice guy and chatted with me for awhile before he started to play again.

After I finished photographing him, I dropped a few dollars into his guitar case, and thanked him for his time. He reached out with his hand, and I shook it. He said to me, “this kind of thing isn’t what I really want to be doing. It’s just a necessity to pay the bills at the moment.” I felt bad about what he said, and was thankful about my own economic situation. I wish I had gotten his name, but I’ve seen him on multiple occasions, and if I run into him again I will surely get it.

Below is one of the photographs I took of him. I’ll be using two in the final project, but I decided to only show one in this post.

After I finished with him, I moved back down the staircase to the trains. I was going to head to Park Street to find some other musicians. On my way down I was followed by 4 transit cops. I was told to stop and they wanted to speak with me. “Great” I thought to myself. They said it was illegal to take photographs on MBTA property and I would have to leave if I kept doing it. I find it very disappointing when “law enforcement” officers don’t know their own laws. How does that work. Luckily I carry around a printout, from the MBTA Transit Police website that states all of the rules and regulations of photography and the MBTA. I handed it to one of the officers and asked him to read it. They seemed dumbfounded, called in something on the radio, and told me to have a nice day….weird.

As soon as I made it to South Station I heard the faint noise of pinch harmonics. Not a sound I’ve heard from any subway musician before. I got off the green line platform, and made my way down to the “real” subway. The red line. There was a tall kid in the middle of the platform just going at it with his pinch harmonics. I watched him for about 10 minutes. He obviously saw me watching him, and was probably creeped out because 5 or 6 trains had gone by and I hadn’t gotten on any of them.

I waited until he finished a song and approached him. He said his name was Cody, he’s a freshman at Berklee School of Music. This obviously explained why he was so good at what he was doing. I asked him if he knew a few of my friends who go to, or went to his school and he actually knew one of them. Anyways I asked him if I could shoot some photographs of him, and he was all for that. I’m surprised at how everyone has been cool with photographs so far. Below is a photograph of him.

So far I’ve photographed four of these guys and I’m looking forward to finding more of them. I really enjoy being out in the public with all of the people. I normally wouldn’t approach these people, and like everyone else, I have my assumptions about each person, and I have been wrong each time. I could never go into a subway and play music in front of all of the people. Anyways…I’m done with this post. =)

I have been super busy and haven’t been able to post anything here in the past 10 days or so.  I am working on a new project on the MBTA. I’m photographing/interviewing subway musicians. The whole idea of the project as of now is to take portraits of them while they do their thing.

I’m trying to do it in such a way that it’s not too posed or fake. I don’t want the musician to change the way they are acting just because I am shooting their photo. So far I’ve done two separate musicians. This is an ongoing project so I don’t anticipate me finishing it anytime soon.

Right now I’ve named the project “Underground Musicians.” I’m trying to decide how to approach the project in its entirety. I have taken the photographs so far without any of the crowd in the shots. I can’t decide if I like it that way or not. It makes the musicians seem like they’re in their own personal space, but at the same time, the photographs are being shot in the most public of any areas.

Maybe it would be better for me to show the musician’s interaction with the crowd/public? I’m really struggling with that decision. This project is also making me think in ways I don’t usually think. I’m so used to photographing famous musicians in a concert or studio setting. These “underground musicians” are generally unknown. Also, one doesn’t have a choice whether or not one wants to listen to the music or not. This is different for me as well because the musicians I generally photograph are being paid to perform and the people watching are there to see them. Anyways, here is a photograph of one of the musicians I have photographed so far. He was surprisingly talented, and this was shot at South Station in Boston.

Well I was lucky to be the only credentialed photographer at the show at the Paradise Rock Club the other night. I have always enjoyed Anti-Flag, and I really didn’t know anything about the other bands. I really liked Star Fucking Hipsters and Cancer Bats. They were both pretty heavy. I didn’t really enjoy listening, or shooting Aiden. They turned the lights basically off, and they were just too demonic for me. Anyways, here are some shots of Anti-Flag.