Scott Newton Photo

Long ago I spent years photographing Willie Nelson performing (as the house photographer at the Austin Opera House in the late 70’s), but I hadn’t shot him playing in over 7 years. At the latest ACL Fest I got to witness that he hasn’t lost any of his direct connect to the Muse. In fact, the diameter of his spiritual pipeline seems to have expanded. Here he appears to be glowing with the creative energy he conducts…. .

I was hired to shoot our Mayor yesterday, and here’s the resulting shot. It was done about 10 minutes after sunrise, so there’s no direct light (the low sun is hiding behind adjacent buildings). I found a spot at City Hall where all of the diagonals seemed to tumble down through the shot. Once I broke up his body language by putting his hand in his pocket, I had a clean flow of energy from top to bottom, interrupted only by the oval of his face. I like the way the V in the building’s top is repeated in his jacket. I really like the foreground elements of soft greenery and stone. He’s a nice guy, and he warmed right up when I told him that this was the last shot… The shot places him as an integral part of a powerful piece of architecture. Anyway, yesterday all of the elements came together into a nice portrait.

I’ve just finished shooting about 50 great bands at both the ACL studios and at ACL Fest in the last week,. This shot of Cat Power was shot in studio. I’ve just started editing and this shot immediately jumped off the pile…. I was very impressed with her songs, style and substance.

She had just finished playing her very own rousing composition on the party whistle when she decided to flash some of that wonderful creative energy at her grandfather. Luckily, I had a camera to record the moment….

I’ve been working a lot lately, doing very different things, day after day. One of my jobs recently put me in this vantage point, hovering in a helocopter, so different than all the music shots I’ve been posting here lately. This is a view looking generally south down the hundreds-of-miles-long barrier island, the longest in the country, Padre Island. Those little dots on the beach are cars. I love doing the unexpected, out of the Blue…it’s one of the great benefits of being a freelance photographer…just thought I’d share.

I really like this shot. The performer is Mat Devine of Kill Hannah, taken this month in Chicago at Lollapalooza… The shot, though, is almost timeless; an archetype, a visual parable It could be any charismatic channeler anywhere, anytime. It just happens to be Now.

One of the ways you can discern the effectiveness of a wide shot is by whether you feel you know what’s happening out of frame. Can you feel the vast throbbing throng to the left? Can you see the line of stunning architecture surrounding the venue? Can you hear the music? Can you feel the excitement? Only pieces of those elements are illustrated, but we bring our imagination to supply the whole…or we don’t. I can only show you a slice, and an instant. It was a great show in a great venue, Grant Park.

Watching Tweedy play in front of his city and, literally, his family, was wonderful to witness. I’ve never seen him so animated. In this shot he’s stepping out of the darkness to shine his music back on Chicago.

I’m in the middle of a final edit of Wilco, and I want to share…I’ll post several shots; I have a lot to say about these guys… One of my favorite photographic tenets is the concept that “there’s a new truth every moment”. You’ve got to be highly attuned to changing circumstance and serendipity, searching for the pivot point. In this case, the setting sun momentarily shined between two skyscrapers with a seemingly directed and focused beam of light, perfectly backlighting Jeff Tweedy…. Here, he looks like he’s on fire, which, in a sense, he is.

I really love shooting Festivals because I’m exposed to acts I’d never see or hear otherwise. This Chicago band, playing in the punkish rock genre, (I hate to catagorize music too much), really has the Muse flowing through them…..which to my way of hearing things is what it’s all about.