In the Spotlight or the Wings Wearing Black?

I’ve often thought about times when I was on stage crew during high school play productions, and compared that experience to other times when I was on stage as a musician in a rock band. The first one I had to wear black to be able to change set pieces between scenes in the dark. The other I wore brightly colored clothing that said “performer”, played lead guitar, sang in the stage light, and got applause. (Our drummer’s wife, who is a school teacher, once said after a performance, “Huh. No one has ever clapped for me.”)

That’s it. Two places where we get to choose to live. In the wings of the stage wearing black, supporting, being invisible, or out on the stage in the light for all to see.

I just watched a video of Led Zeppelin performing to a huge crowd and saw a photographer in the shadows working. As photographers, we are often the ones in the black shirt, using black cameras, tucked away out of the light to do our job.

Where do you like to be? For me, as a photographer, I’m often in the wings, but I love a good spotlight when I can get it!

I’ve been making a lot of Rolleiflex portraits these past few weeks and I thought about how in a sense, I am bringing people who are walking along downtown Denver or Boulder metaphorically out of the shadows and onto the stage by placing them in front of my camera. “Hi, may I make your portrait?” They are chosen, they’re put in the spotlight, they become the stars of the photographs.

This woman was visiting Boulder from Miami last Sunday evening, and easily could have stayed completely obscured except that I put her in the spotlight. (Other people were watching her in front of my camera–it really was a stage I set. In a sense, we were both performing.) And now you’re looking at her. She is the featured subject, the star!

Her photograph has garnered a lot of likes and comments on social media. They’re noticing her and me–we’ve become the performers.

There were others, out for the evening. “Step into my spotlight,” is what I really was saying. I was using a brilliant off-camera light–the setting sun! You can’t get a better spotlight than that.

To anyone who says they want to be a famous photographer, I always say, “Name ten famous photographers.” Most photographers can’t. Definitely most people/non-photographers cannot!

You’re either famous for something else–Dennis Hopper, Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, they all are published photographers. Or you photograph famous people–Annie Leibovitz, and, uh…hmmm, what’s that name…can’t think of anyone everyone knows. Uh…let me think…what’s that guy’s name?

Umm, okay, there’s Dan Winters, Joe McNally, Platon, Mark Seliger, Russell James. (Yes, I had to search for living celebrity photographers to come up with them–these are not household names.) Richard Avedon, when he was alive, made himself into a bit of a celebrity, but that was 60 years ago and most people today probably still never heard of him.

We the photographers can still get out of the shadows and into the spotlight–when we show our work in gallery exhibition, or even social media posts, we the photographers become the ones on stage. The ones they’re all looking at. It’s us.

Finally, we’ve stepped out of the shadows and into the spotlight. It’s our work they’re coming to see.

If you’re in the Denver area, I have a photograph in the Colorado Photographic Arts Center‘s annual Members’ Show which has its opening Saturday night, 6/29/24 at 5pm. Maybe I’ll see you there.

You’ll be able to find me. I’ll be one of the photographers looking like a performer, wearing something colorful, standing in the bright light.