Shooting Rock
For many creative teenagers, being a music photographer is the dream job. Not only do you get to spend most of your time taking pictures but you get to follow your Rock idols around on tour just waiting for something exciting to kick off.
For the second in its Visual Identity series, the British Music Experience (housed in London’s The O2 Arena) has invited music photographer Paul Slattery to talk about his career capturing momentous moments from Rock history.
Slattery took his first photography at the Lyceum in 1975 – when he should have been at home studying for his school exams. A chance meeting with Lemmy from Motörhead propelled his career forward, and he went on to photograph Punk greats The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Ramones.
Slattery photographed the Smiths, and the Stone Roses for album artwork, defining to look of the mid eighties and nineties. He also spent a year on the road with Oasis and survived drinking sessions with Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Motörhead. I wouldn’t have wanted to be around for those hangovers.
Rock Photography with Paul Slattery is on 17 February at British Music Experience, The O2, Peninsula Square, London SE10.
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another interesting exhibition at O2
MUZIK KINDA SWEET BY POGUS CAESAR 1st – 30th October 2011
The British Music Experience at O2 presented by the Co-operative, in association with OOM Gallery will be showcasing an exclusive exhibition of 38 rare photographs celebrating legendary black musicians working in the UK.
Using a simple camera photographer Pogus Caesar followed the musicians and singers around the famous venues producing a collection that celebrates a style of black music that brings together the UK, the US and the Caribbean.
From Stevie Wonder in 1989, Grace Jones in 2009 and Big Youth in 2011, this unique exhibition documents how black music, in its Reggae, Soul, Jazz and R&B tributaries of sound, has changed and renewed itself over the decades.
Journeying from Jimmy Cliff to Jay-Z via Mica Paris and Mary Wilson of The Supremes to David Bowie’s bass player Gail Ann Dorsey, these images conjure up an alphabet of the music of the Black Atlantic.
The photographs selected from OOM Gallery Archive are also as much about the clubs and venues, as it is about the singers, producers and musicians. The Wailers at The Tower Ballroom, Sly Dunbar at The Hummingbird Club, Courtney Pine at Ronnie Scott’s, Cameo at the Odeon Cinema, Ben E. King at the Hippodrome and Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B at BBC Pebble Mill, many venues now lost to regeneration or renewal, and only recalled through memory and imagery.
http://www.britishmusicexperience.com/muzik-kinda-
This exhibition is worth a look – plus I love everything Gail Ann Dorsey.