When I was going through the archives for my rock photo book, I came across my first ever self-portrait, at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, in front of Jim Morrison’s grave. I am a 13-year-old on an awkward trip with my cool father. He had no respect or interest in Jim Morrison, and that photo is like every photo I’ve taken from that moment on – I’m trying to take agency over what is happening.
Photography was the absolute first thing that gave me a feeling of having my own say. It became a way of creating my own universe, one that I could trust. It was absolutely my first love.
I was sidetracked into music in a beautiful way by these radical women and a countercultural movement, so the subject of my photographs just changed. It was me within this environment, on stage with Hole, backstage with these luminary, wild people, travelling across the world. My photography followed and morphed with me, and my camera documented my generation being hijacked by corporate greed and destroyed in the wake of the sacrificial death of Kurt Cobain.
It was a generational call to document the Lollapalooza ’95 tour, where this photo was taken, for us to understand later. It was also when the wild alternative freaks crossed into the mainstream. Bass players are natural wallflowers and I always had a camera with me, just like everyone has a phone now.
In terms of my duty as a female photographer in Hole – not a girlfriend, not an outside male photographer – I was able to glean the essence of that band through that misunderstood and wildly celebrated, but also dismantled queen, Courtney. What I love about the photos of her, and in this photo where she’s just doing her makeup, getting ready to go on stage, is she trusted me so implicitly. She either didn’t notice the camera, or she gave herself to the camera, so I was able to capture her true essence, in the same way that she trusted me to be her bass player and right-hand woman.
My camera and I got to just drink that in. Courtney had been asked to do a tour diary of Lollapalooza for Spin magazine, so it was natural they asked me to take the photos. It felt really grown up for a 23-year-old.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
