Most, if not all, well-known musicians cannot be reached directly. Between label reps, publicist, managers, and tour managers, even independent artists have at least one—and usually two or three—layer of insulation from their fans and the media. That generally makes their life easier, as someone can filter the things that don’t need the artist’s personal attention and deal with the details that would otherwise eat up the talent’s valuable time.

But occasionally messages get garbled or lost along the way, especially when an artist is on the road (i.e. all of the time).

Such was the case a couple of weeks ago when I was scheduled to photograph Julie Doiron for an internet publication before her show in Portland. Between the person I dealt with and Julie, something broke down and she had no idea I was expecting her.

Not a big deal, it happens. The good news is that I had plenty of time to set up the shot. On the down side, when she did arrive, we had almost no time to shoot. We needed a horizontal shot for the publication, so it was one wide shot, one tight shot, a vertical just in case, and the whole thing was over in less than five minutes.

The shot itself was pretty straightforward—one medium softbox straight in front of the subject, and a gridded rim light to her far left. Shot with a 50mm f/1.8 nearly wide open (for the wide shot, as far away as I could without falling down the stairs). It was dark in the balcony when we did the shot, so I had Julie’s tour partner, Will Kidman, shine a flashlight on her so I could focus. Thanks Will!

Japandroids was in Portland at the end of November at the tail end of their 2009 North American tour, the one that replaced the tour they had to cancel on Day 2 when Brian woke up with a perforated ulcer.
That set the band back four or five months, but they’re back on track now, rocking [...]

Po’ Girl are one of those bands that is constantly touring. They’re officially based in Vancouver, but I’m not sure they even have a real residence there.
Their travels bring them down the West Coast on a semi-regular basis, and I had the chance to make some portraits of the two central members, Allison Russell (above, [...]

Vancouver’s Dan Mangan has the reputation of being the nicest guy on the Canadian music scene these days. I only met him once, last year in Portland, but he certainly lived up to that rep. And he’s talented too: among other accolades, Dan recently won the $25,000 XM Satellite Radio Verge Music award for Artist [...]

I’m really pleased with the results of my photo shoot with (two-thirds of) No Kids after their show in Portland in October. We only got Nick and Julia because Justin is spending some time in Germany this fall.
I was fortunate to find a school bus parked next door to the venue, and it seemed strangely [...]

I photographed and interviewed Amy Millan tonight for an upcoming feature on Northwest CanCon. The interview was great, but as usual the photo session was ultra brief (1:37 from her first frame to her last, and I don’t think she had another 30 seconds to spare). I’m headed back to the venue in a few [...]

Back in 2007 Jeremy Fisher’s homemade video for “Cigarette” went viral on YouTube, and now it has been viewed more than 2 million times. Jeremy’s music is upbeat and infectious, and he’s a cool guy. On some of his earliest tours, he crossed North America by bicycle. Crazy! I had the chance to interview and [...]

Photos of Hayden performing at the Aladdin Theatre in Portland in June 2008. Click the thumbnails to view the images.

Back in March I had the opportunity to interview and photograph Vancouver rockers Mother Mother when they were in town opening for Sam Roberts.
It was great to talk to lead singer Ryan Guldemond before the show, and then after photographing their set I managed to pull all five band members together for a lightning-fast three-minute [...]

I had the pleasure of interviewing and photographing legendary singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith last year before his performance at the Doug Fir Lounge here in Portland.
For me, at least, the toughest thing about doing these combined interview/portrait sessions is that it’s usually a really rushed process, especially the photo shoots.
Ron was just checking into the hotel [...]