CBGB
Over a period of ten days in September 2006, I photographed the interior of the legendary NYC rock club CBGB. Six weeks later the club closed its doors forever, and the fabled walls and stage were dismantled. And a year after that, while owner Hilly Kristal succumbed to cancer, a high-end clothing store negotiated to take over the space.
The club had been a favorite venue for countless rock and punk acts, but for those few days in 2006 my experience of the club was the exact opposite of most people's. I came to look forward to my visits as a time of peaceful solitude.
I arrived each morning at 11:00 with my tripod and camera, greeted Hilly at his desk, and then passed into a silent and empty club. During the following three to five hours of shooting, I rarely saw another human.
The club was so dark, even during the day, that I had to carry a flashlight. After framing each shot, I typically took five to seven bracketed exposures, with each exposure lasting as long as thirty seconds, and I ended up with more than 1800 individual frames.
That's how I came to spend hour after hour sitting stock still in CBGB, alone in the dark among the empty beer bottles and broken guitar strings and abandoned drum sticks, waiting in the silence for the shutter to close.
Ten prints from CBGB were exhibited at wall space gallery, Seattle, in October 2008.
Four images are available at special pricing through 20x200.com. Other prints are produced by the artist starting at 16x20" in a limited edition of 12 for $1200. Inquire for larger sizes.