PHOTOGRAPHING PUNKS 101 AND SMASHING PUMPKINS

I photographed fewer punk rockers than you'd suspect, reviewing and writing about same more than shooting them: in true DIY spirit, their friends normally had that end sewn up anyway. Alternate cred: I wrote the first book on the subject published in the U.S., "Punk Rock 'n' Roll" which went to press the week the Sex Pistols broke up, and am personally thanked in the quintessential punk rock flyer book "Photocopied and Fucked Up."

Here, however, are Philly's The Dead Milkmen, vintage era. To get a photo like this I would stand on a chair (since I'm short), open the aperture, have a slower exposure to get stage light on the performers, then shoot the flash to get the audience comme ca. Audiences remain rowdy, and one has to hold camera still despite "the ambience." Worst, oddly, was one Smashing Pumpkins' audience, whose mosh pit so tossed me around that half my pix were of the ceiling insofar as I normally don't take photos of ceilings. Below, a non-ceiling shot of same with lighting mimicking the 1966 Velvet Underground live performances.