Between the stage and the audience in the first row of the concerts there is a space where the photographers gather to start the images that will illustrate the chronicles, a place known as the orchestra, from where they take photos of the artists for a few songs to try to get the snapshot that reflects the moment. Elbow strikes, flashes and telephoto lenses in a physical space traditionally dominated by men where the female presence has experienced a gradual crescendo that is collected in the exhibition From her to eternity: the women who photograph music. Located in a huge mural in the Wabash area, in the center of Chicago, the exhibition has 46 large-scale images made over the years by women photographers, professionals who have often been unfairly undervalued.
The exhibition covers half a century of music, from the legendary Aretha Franklin to the Pussy Riot through Ringo Starr, the Ramones, Amy Winehouse, Lana del Rey or Nick Cave, images taken both live and in a studio that bear witness to the long tradition of the female presence behind the camera that the exhibition, curated by Julie Pannebianco and Courtney Love, wants to highlight by adding names and surnames. “We want to highlight this invisible role of the woman behind the camera in the music industry”, explains Madrid-based Ruth Baza, member of the Archive of Contemporary Music (ARC), the organization that organizes the exhibition.
In her long career, Baza has experienced the unequal treatment of her male colleagues who saw her as “a little damsel” on stage, where she was often the only woman. “A person like me, a little tall but very thin, was suddenly surrounded by giants who push and dominate you and don’t let you see anything”. This inequality was transferred to public recognition, since “the role of men has always been prioritized over that of women, it has been valued more”, which has not prevented the appearance of great photographers represented in the exhibition .
“Courtney Love and Julie Pannebianco are the women who instituted within the archive this meeting in which we are women from various fields of the arts and communication in the world of music”, explains the photographer from Madrid, and points out that the role of the widow of Kurt Cobain in the exhibition has been very active. “Julie has been working intensively for a year and a half with all the photographers, but always under the supervision of Courtney. Despite the fact that she is a rock star, she is an aunt who likes to supervise things, she does not live on Olympus”.
When Ruth Baza retired from photography in the early 2000s, Neelam Khan had barely picked up a camera. With 27 years of age and a career that began in London working for the music magazine NME, this Barcelona native established in Berlin was taken by surprise by her presence at the exhibition, where she participates with an image of the American Weyes Blood. Although he has been engaged in photography for years, it was not until after the pandemic that he did it in a fully professional way. “I started working more with Amaia, and that opened more doors for me. Now, on tour with Weyes Blood, I feel like it’s the first tour I’m doing for real”, he explains, although it’s not the first time he’s gone on tour with other artists. From his personal experience, Khan sees a more positive outlook for women in the world of music photography, “there are so many female photographers today”, he says, and remembers that when he is in concert “the vast majority of times always there is quite a mix, or even more women”.
The increase in the presence of women does not, however, solve the other big problem of women’s photography, which is their lack of visibility, another objective of the exhibition that Khan emphasizes, and emphasizes that “neither I myself knew the vast majority of photographers participating in this exhibition, and the fact that I am one of them is crazy.” A necessary didactic function, which has led the organizers to contact other cities to move the exhibition to various parts of the world once the exhibition in Chicago ends in September.
