Paul Natkin

This month, I sat down with Paul Natkin, a Chicago music photographer. I wanted to talk to Paul because he has stories, and he loves to tell them.

Nicole: Let's start at the beginning. What is the first show you shot?

Paul: The first concert I ever shot was Bonnie Raitt. Someplace at Northwestern University in 1975, I want to say. I just b.s.'d my way in. In those days you could. I used to be a sports photographer. They kind of relate. I was able to b.s. my way into any sporting event. I would make a phone call and be on the sidelines of a Bears game, or in the photo pit at Wrigley Field, or sitting right on the court of a Bulls game or a tennis match. One day, I was coming home from a tennis match, and I heard on the radio that Bonnie Raitt was playing. I figured, let's see if i can b.s. my way in, let's see if it will work. It was so easy, it was beyond belief.

Nicole: What did you say?

Paul: I didn't say anything. I had my cameras around my shoulder, and I walked to the backstage door, I had this whole bullshit story rehearsed. I opened the door and the guard looked at me and said "You with the press? Go on in, do anything you want, just don't get up on stage." It was never that easy again, but it wasn't all that difficult in those days.

Nicole: Is this what got you started shooting live music for a living?

Paul: The first picture I ever sold was a total fluke. It was Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters. Before the concert, I was standing talking to another photographer, a guy by the name Mark Pokemper. Like photographers always do, I said "Oh, who are you shooting for?". He said "I'm shooting for the Reader". I'm thinking, that's really cool. About ten minutes before the show, he walked backstage and got a chair and brought it into the orchestra pit, because the orchestra pit was really low, and he wanted to stand on the chair to get a better angle. One of the security guys came and told him he couldn't do that. They got in a big verbal exchange, and they kicked him out before the show started. I started shooting, then a lightbulb went off in my head, like they do in the cartoons. He was shooting for the Reader, he just got kicked out, the Reader probably needs a photo. I had no idea how to sell a picture to a publication. I stayed up all night, developed the film, dried the film with a hair dryer. Early in the morning I made 3 or 4 prints, dried them in the sunlight in the car, held them up to the heater. I got the address, I had no idea where they even were. I walked in there, said your photographer got kicked out last night, do you need these pictures? Nobody even knew, so I just left the prints there. I wrote my name in pencil on the back of the prints. A couple days later I got a phone call, saying what's your address, we want to send you a check. It was for $35. It's my first picture I ever got published.

Nicole: What was the last band you shot?

Paul: Last night. Eagles of Death Metal. At the Eagle's Ballroom in Milwaukee. Tomorrow I drive up to Milwaukee again to shoot the Pretenders.

Nicole: Another story I wanted to get out of you, was about our favorite three song rule. (Photographers are only allowed to photograph bands for the first three songs of a live show.)

I know you don't subscribe to that. I know you have a story of where this thing came from.

Paul: It started in the '80's with bands in New York, especially Springsteen. When a band played in New York, especially places like the Garden, they gave out tons of photo passes. At least half to paparazzi guys. Those people don't know how to photograph, their only option is to put a flash on a camera. Alot of people didn't even know how to change film, they knew they only had 36 shots. They were just doing it for the excitement of doing it. Bruce would go up on stage, and there would be 50 photographers, all shooting flashes in his face. I don't blame him, he walked off stage one night and said, we have to do something about this. Somebody said, why not just let them shoot the first fifteen minutes? Somebody figured out at a normal rock show, a song is about five minutes. Somebody said, let's just let them shoot the first three songs. So it started with him and people in that era. It was also that MTV started around that time, and everybody wanted to look perfect, the way they looked in their videos.

There's this Chicago band called Jesus Lizard. This is back in the early '90's. They came to my house to do a photo shoot for the cover of some punk magazine. We're sitting around talking, and in the middle of the conversation, the lead singer turns to me and says I have this really crazy question for you. Why is it that as soon as our show starts getting really good, all of the photographers pack up their stuff and leave? I had two realizations at that point. One is that he had no idea that there was a three song rule, and that this had become so pervasive that the venue automatically kicked everyone out after three songs. So I started doing research on it. One thing I found out was, it's not up to the venue, it's up to the band. So I called Jesus Lizard and said you guys are getting ready to go out on Lollapalooza, when it was still traveling around, I said all you got to do is have your road manager have a meeting with the Lollapalooza people before the tour starts, and tell them that they should let every photographer shoot the whole Jesus Lizard show. They said, that's a great idea. About a month later, I go to shoot Lollapalooza, and there is a note with the pass that says you're allowed to shoot the first three songs of every band except for Jesus Lizard, who has requested that everybody shoot their entire show. The coolest part of the whole victory, is about three weeks later, I have a friend in New York who is considered to be one of the top music photographers in the world, and she was going to Lollapalooza to shoot for this little tiny publication called the New York TImes. I told her about this. About the second to the last song of their set, David, the singer, grabbed the microphone and dove out into the crowd, he was on his back, the crowd was holding him with their hands and at Jones Beach in New York, the sun sets right behind the audience. She shot the picture and it appeared on the front page of the New York Times. That would have never happened had he not asked me the question sitting on my couch.

Nicole: There is something about the live music photography from the '70's and '80's that is more real, more honest, more raw.

Paul: I always ask every musician I know, what's the deal with this three song thing? Why not give them the opportunity to get a good picture? It all goes back to Cartier-Bresson. He wrote this book called the decisive moment. It is all about waiting for the moment. That's what a photographer does.