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"SUITS" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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In a career that spans over three decades, Richard E. Aaron has shot still photography for a wide variety of media, ranging from feature films, television series and music videos to corporate public relations, entertainment publicity and album covers and of course rock 'n' roll tours.
...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "SUITS" by Richard E Aaron
The logo for Fleetwood Mac is the penguin. I was hired by Warner Bros. Records in New York to go to the Bronx Zoo to shoot the penguins in B&W. (What else, right?!?). The label wanted to create 5-foot posters for an after-show party. It was nine in the morning on a winter day, and the penguin house was freezing; even the penguins were not moving. So I started to flap my hands against my side so the penguins might think that I was one of them. I swear that it worked; they started to gather close to me, which enabled me to take the shot. What I did not realize until afterward was that I had an audience beyond my newly found feathered friends. Behind me was a large picture window where a crowd, of people, had gathered, laughing all the while as I directed my, um, models.
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His extensive work in music photography (4,000 groups photographed) led to his first assignment in feature film, "Fleetwood: The Visitor in Africa" (RCA Film Prod.), a mini-feature filmed on location in Africa. Similar projects for many top rock & roll groups followed. He traveled through the People's Republic of China for several months in 1986, where he documented the first Western rock group to record an album and tour.
Perhaps best known for his music photography, he was honored by Modern Photography Magazine as one of the "10 Best Rock Photographers" in the world, he has more than 50 album covers to his credit including "FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE," still the biggest selling double live LP. He shot the first photographic rock 'n' roll cover of Time magazine - Paul McCartney/Wings Over America. All told, his work has appeared in more than 6,000 magazines, newspapers and books worldwide.
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS..."MICK FLEETWOOD/ STEVIE NICKS" by Richard E Aaron
I have been shooting Fleetwood Mac concerts since the early 70's, before they became a super group. This is a band where each member has their own extremely individual personality. Since I was the New York photographer for Warner Records, every time Fleetwood Mac would come to town, I would be the shooter. I had photos printed in their tour programs and in magazines. I got even closer to the group in 1981 when I covered Mick Fleetwood's trip to Ghana West Africa. I was hired by RCA Records and Rolling Stone Magazine to photograph Mick's first solo album recording. For me this also turned into a album jacket shoot, "Fleetwood the Visitor." After that, Mick and I became good friends, and we became even closer once I moved to Los Angeles.
This shot is from a charity show called the 10K Rock and Run held at UCLA in 1983. Musicians would run for charity and after the event Fleetwood Mac played a free concert. I was on stage when I got this shot of Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood; the song was Stevie's signature "Rhiannon." She was at center stage singing and proceeded to walk over to Mick and for only a moment leaned against him. I saw it coming, positioned myself to Mick's left side and waited for Stevie to walk to him. She did, and I clicked.
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"FLEETWOOD MAC" by RICHARD E. AARON ©2003
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EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY (or, Life Beyond The Mosh Pit)
Richard E. Aaron's career as a rock 'n' roll photographer took him around the world -- several times in fact. But there were a couple of places that remained the same no matter what town he happened to be in that night -- The Pit and Backstage. As a working photo-journalist, these spaces were home to Richard the majority of evenings on any given week.
The Pit refers not to the mosh pit, a Nineties innovation to the rock venue, but rather the photographers pit directly in front of the stage
where Richard and his colleagues would gather to capture the elusive perfect shot. Often within reaching distance of the performers, these were
the best seats in the house, although technically there were no seats in the pit, it was ones butt or ones knees to shoot from.
Backstage hasn't changed since the earliest incarnations of rock 'n' roll. Backstage has always been The Forbidden Zone where pretty young women willingly sacrificed their virginity and where all kinds of mind-altering substances thrived. Richard was on of the chosen few who often had a key to The Forbidden Zone, that Holy Grail of rock, the all mighty .... All Access Pass.
When he wasn't shooting a live performance or backstage, Richard would often work out of his studio, a Manhattan brownstone with 6-foot-high
windows that were perfect for shooting in natural light. His studio was filled with a photographer's paraphernalia: strobe lights, umbrellas
diffusers, light stands and tripods, and huge seamless rolls of paper. And of course in the corner was a fully stocked bar to loosen up fidgety
subjects.
Come along now as Richard recounts his best anecdotes about life beyond the mosh pit. Always the professional, Richard also relates technical details about the shooting of each photo and even gives tips to those contemplating the life of a photo-journalist. If you don't watch yourself, you might even learn something.
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"JIMMY PAGE" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "JIMMY PAGE" by Richard E Aaron
The greatest guitarist in the greatest rock 'n' roll band ever. Photographed Led Z. many times and each time I was overwhelmed by the visual show they put on. From laser lights to flash pots. Shooting them in B&W, makes you concentrate on another aspect of the visual as you try to capture their intense facial and body movements. If you were shooting color, you'd have no choice but to focus on the light show, it was so overwhelming.
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "PRINCE" by Richard E Aaron
Purple Rain tour, Detroit. Prince opened his Purple Rain tour in the Motor City for a five day booking. At that time I was photo editor of a national rock'n'roll magazine, and we were doing a cover story on Prince. His record company and management gave me permission to shoot the opening of the tour, four nights in Detroit.
The first night before the first show, all the photographers were asked to come early to the venue to receive the do's and do not's and their assigned positions for the show. As was the hottest act in the country at the time, there were photographers from all over the world covering this event. We were placed on a box half way between the stage and the back of the coliseum, which was about 300 or more feet. We all had long lens on tripods, but I was still too far from the stage to get a decent shot. Prince's handlers said that if we were caught leaving the photo box, we would be ejected from the show. The longest lens I had was a 300mm and a 600mm.
By the second night I was getting nothing and getting very edgy that I was not getting the cover shot that I needed. I had to do something about it.
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"PRINCE" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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I knew that after the third song, the audience would get out of their chairs and stand on their seats. This would be the perfect time to make my move.
I grabbed a pocket full of color and B&W film, took the cameras off the tripod and slung a camera with a 180mm lens on one shoulder and another camera with a 85mm lens on the other, and stuffed a 50mm in my pocket. A spot meter hung around my neck. In other words, I was pretty conspicuous. When the fourth song hit, right on cue the audience went wild and stood on their chairs. At that moment, all the security detail turned around to look at the stage and I jumped over the barrier and took off into the center of the hall and down the isle. I bumped into a security guard and told him I was on my back from the rest room to my seat. He did think twice and let me alone. Got to the third row and noticed that there was an empty seat in the middle. I guess that who ever was sitting in this seat was one of the people who had rushed the stage. I could not believe it -- the perfect position! I looked through my camera and smiled.
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"STEVE TYLER" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "STEVE TYLER" by Richard E Aaron
This is another shoot where the assignment was mission impossible: a small, boring location and a short period to shoot in. In this situation, you have to think creatively. Use what's at your fingertips. No time to whine. I was assigned to shoot Aerosmith for a national magazine during one of the band's cross-country tours. Holed up between shows in a hotel, I had only 20 minutes to get the photo. Turned out that the hotel room was so small it was impossible to set up a mobile studio. I glanced outside to the balcony and noticed there was an extreme light angle due to the overhead sun. I positioned Steve in accordance with the lighting and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "JERRY GARCIA" by Richard E Aaron
My best-selling photograph of all time, used in more magazines that any other. Shot in Central Park on assignment for Good Times magazine. Mid afternoon, very sunny out, and no strobe for fill flash. Even worse, I had high speed b&w film, but I did have Kodachrome for my color shots. I had one prop for the shoot which was stored in a paper bag. I was in a panic about the sun (too much!), which gave him heavy face shadows with dark eye rings. Jerry brought his tour manager with him who, I think, might have done some photography because throughout the shoot all I could
hear him say is that none of the photos will come out because of the shadows on the face. He didn't realize I was shooting Jerry with either the sun at his back or behind a tree.
We walked to a children's playground area and sat Jerry on a set of swings and pulled out of my paper bag a Raggedy Ann doll, placed it on Jerry's lap and started to shoot. The tour manager turned to me, smiled and said "good idea". I was looking for a good background and found a
giant elm. Jerry was wearing his glasses and I was getting heavy reflections, so I had him push the glasses to the edge of his nose and peer
over the rims while holding the frames.
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"JERRY GARCIA" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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"BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN" by Richard E Aaron
Bruce was performing a show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. I was on assignment for the publicity department of CBS Records and was allowed to shoot the whole show. As Bruce was finishing one of his songs, I looked at the frame counter and there were 5 shots left -- barely a second's worth with my motor drive. On the next song all the lights on stage were turned off except one overhead and a few feet in back of him. The light silhouetted his body creating an aura. I looked through the camera, which had a 50-millimeter lens attached, and knew I was witnessing one of those once- in-a-lifetime shots. But I needed to go wider; the 50-millimeter lens was way too tight -- and I had only another 10, maybe 15 seconds to correct the situation before the composition was lost. I switched to a 24mm lens and put in a fresh roll of Tri-X film and captured Bruce at the microphone, his hands waving side to side. It was the kind of spontaneous shot impossible to stage in a studio. I had 36 frames of this and had the luxury of picking the best. Shots like these require being in the right place at the right time, but also advance preparation and constant concentration. Had I been checking out the audience, cleaning a lens, or, God forbid, out of film, the shot would have been lost.
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Although Richard loved shooting rock 'n' roll, he felt there were times when he needed to escape into other worlds. "..And I was always the better for it. Shooting landscapes, still lifes and other commercials assignments always inspired me when I returned to my main gig". Below is a selection of what he calls his "Non-Rock" photography.
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "FASHION ORLEANS" by Richard E Aaron
The client hired me for my eye in shooting B&W. I was so into the shoot that I recall taking 15 minutes to complete this one shot -- an eternity for a photojournalist like myself. After capturing it, I turned around and was startled to see a crowd of at least two hundred watching me in complete silence. The client loved the man in the background, whom I did not notice until the photo was printed.
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"CLOCK" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "LINKED" by Richard E Aaron
This is not what it looks like. In reality, it's part of a huge Hollywood-type soundstage set for the film "Mortal Kombat Two." The girl was one of many hired as extras to hang out at the club dance scene. Lesson: You can capture small areas of an interior or exterior landscape and completely change the nature of the original. |
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"MOTION" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "PUMPKINS" by Richard E Aaron
I wanted to do a shoot for my self in Black & White that people if they come up to see the visual it would only register in color and would never think of that subject in a Black & White format. I was living at the beach during the winter and traveling down the road during a heavy overcast day. There was a a plot of land that was set up to sell pumpkins for the Thanksgiving holiday. Usually for the holiday you would see a small pumpkin stand selling pumpkins but this was a huge road side plot about 200 feet by 100 feet with a few thousand large pumpkins. I drove off to the side of the road, grabbed my camera and a long lens because what I was seeing was not the color but the forms, a lot of forms pushed together, one on top of another. I captured the what I saw. Concentrating on one pumpkin in the shot and having the focus graduate from the edges to the main focus of the photo.
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"FASHION ORLEANS" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "CLOCK" by Richard E Aaron
Patience is what you must have to do this type of photo. The hardest part was keeping the sand smooth. Every time I smoothed it out to cover my footprints, a gust of wind would come along and knock down the numbers.
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"LINKED" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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...IN HIS OWN WORDS... "MOTION" by Richard E Aaron
I wanted to do a still shot that represents motion. i wanted to take my training in cinema and transfer it to still. I sprayed the fabric with water and put two light in the back and the model was sitting on a ladder. When she came close to the fabric it would cling to her shin. I had her pull and push on to the cloth. Pushing at the fabric gave lines in the shot which represented motion.
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"PUMPKINS" by Richard E. Aaron ©2003
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Currently, Richard is shooting Gallery Special and Production Stills for feature film companies, He is also working with a variety of feature films, as director cameraman producing videos on “Behind The Scenes /The Making Of. But he also shoots stills in the music industry, as in music videos, CD jackets, music tours, and publicity. A native of New York, Mr. Aaron and his photo agency have been located in Los Angeles since 1980.
He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts (New York City) and of Brooks Institute of Photography (Santa Barbara, California). BA,BFA,MA.
[biography by Richard E. Aaron and Greg Ptacek]
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A Black and White Life
Richard E. Aaron recounts how it all started...
I started with my first camera at the age of seven. It was a sort of gift. In my neighborhood where I lived in New York City I was about to open my first bank savings account. With the first deposit the bank lets you choose a gift between four products. The choice was between a toaster, a hair dryer, an electric blanket and a camera. The camera was a Kodak Hawkeye camera which used 127 type films. I had no need for any of the products, the camera looked interesting. That is how it all started.
 photo by Larry Kasanoff ©2003
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At the age of eleven I got a bit more serious about the camera. My parents who did a lot of vacation traveling took me on a road trip to the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Hershey, Penn. There was a pond in back of the factory which had one white goose and one black duck, they were playing with each other and did not mind being photographed. I sent the film to the photo shop, and when I got it back I was so impressed by the art of the shots that it made a great impression on myself taking photography very serious as a way to express my self at play.
I was first born and grew up as an only child, no brothers or sisters. Through my young teen years I deeply concentrated on all aspects of photography from the shoot to the darkroom. I could still hear my mother yell out to me to keep the bathroom clean when I was using it as a darkroom. My life became photography.
In High School I entered a black and white photo in a contest in Japan, some Japanese company who manufactured heavy tools for factory machinery had a photo contest opened for all types of photos, it was advertised in the New York Times, so I entered. I won honorable mention in the contest. I entered the black and white shot of the two birds from Hershey. At this point I decided to go to a still photography/film production school after high school and go for a degree and then a masters. I spent seven years in schooling and received a BA. BFA and a MA.
Black and White was the tool that I used all of the time when I went out to shoot a non-school or non-job shoot. When you shoot Black and White you only have to concentrate on the content 100% of the time. When you shoot color and you see a scene you have to make sure content and subject is right, then you have to make sure the color is in conjunction with the subject you are shooting. With B&W it’s only the subject you have to see. So you do not loose that instant that you see the shot to the instant that you depress the shutter button. The way it goes is that I see and capture in that same instant.
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| Images from the TRADITIONAL FILM Gallery. | |
| Images from the PANORAMA Gallery. | |
| Images from the LIMITED EDITION Gallery. | 
"Prop"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Horse Training"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Steve Tyler, Aerosmith"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"John Lee Hooker / Carlos Santa"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Eddie Van Halen"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Mac Fleetwood / Stevie Nicks"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Prince"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Jerry Garcia"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Bruce Springsteen"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Jimmy Page"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"John Lee Hooker / Carlos Santa"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Keith Richards"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Michael Jackson"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Ronnie Spector"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Elton John"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"George Harrison / Kermit"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Paul McCarthy"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Robert Plant"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Rod Stewart"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Twelve O'Clock High"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Clock"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Fashion Orleans"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Linked"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Motion"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Two Horns"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Sunless Sunflower"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Golden Eagle"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Pumpkins"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Suits"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Music Sheet"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Reflection"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Sunset"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Circle of Boats"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Flight"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"5th Floor Fire Escape"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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"Wheels"
©2003 R. Aaron, USA
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| Images from the DIGITAL Gallery. | |
| Images from the DIGITAL ART Gallery. | |
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