Music photography… and some background stories!

17 Nov 2006 Category: Features, Music, Photography, Worldwide

Photographer Sebastian Mayer goes wherever life drags him. Starting by playing in a band himself and doing photography on the side, he got to meet all sorts of musicians in Berlin before they became the stars of today, was working with music magazine Spex, did all sorts of photography for music, advertisement and friends, toured as the bassist for Ladytron for 9 months, moved to Rio de Janeiro, neutralized in New York for some weeks and just arrived in Tokyo. Here are some of his photos, his future plans and overall - some nice star-gossip!

Written by Uleshka

Sebastian, who is the biggest musician you ever photographed?

I would say - Iggy Pop! Well, it depends what you mean! Biggest in terms of “fame” or biggest in terms of “personally” - but actually in both cases it would be Iggy Pop! (laughs)

Does he really have such blue eyes?

He does! I actually retouch all of my photos because I like to play with color a lot and adjust them to what I consider the perfect color for a particular photo, but Iggy’s eyes are really blue! The scars are from the concert the night before. He really rocked - it was amazing!

So, how did you get to make that photo in one of Rio de Janeiro’s villas then?

Well, I lived in Rio de Janeiro at that time when Jonathan Shaw, who is on the next photo called me and said: “Bring your camera and a big salami and come over to my place! I am having a chat with Iggy!” That was a great afternoon!

They were having a chat about the good old times… we were eating salami together and drinking cold coffee out of tin cans… Both really interesting people!

Jonathan Shaw actually used to hang out with illustrious people such as the lawyer of Charles Manson… Together with Jim Jarmusch, Johnny Depp and Iggy Pop he founded a club called “Skull Ring Club” - and they also actually wear those skull rings all the time (watch out for those next time you see one of them on a picture…). Jonathan also has been friends with the Brazilian Hell’s Angels. He is actually still with them, driving one of the biggest bikes I’ve ever seen.

He is also a “lowbrow writer”, traveled around the world and met several other writers like William Burroughs or Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski… and he has one of the biggest and most important tattoo collections in the world. From as far as I know there is a book made right now in LA about his collection, since he was one of the first legal tattoo artists in the US.

But one of the funniest things about Jonathan is actually that he believes in….
No, he will hate me if I say that!

Oh! Come on!

…He actually believes in Lizard people who control the world…

(very funny face expression)

Don’t look at me like that! I DON’T KNOW ANYTHNG ELSE ABOUT IT! Really!!!

OK, OK! How come you did so much music photography in the first place then?

It just kind of happened! Actually the first person I ever photographed was Larry Clark - the one who made Kids… but he was originally a photographer himself and I very much admire his photographic works, for example Tulsa. So - I went to photograph him at the Hof Film Festival (which is a really good one by the way) and he kept complaining about the lens I was using and said he would never use such a big lens… and he was actually right! I was into wide angle lenses at that point but after photographing him, I stopped using those completely… I realized that it is not close enough to reality!

What I actually always ask myself: how do you come up with an idea as to how to take a photo of a - let’s say - a musician? Or this one here of Carsten Nicolai…

Well, I basically gave up trying to plan things in advance. You listen to the guys music or look at their work, then map out a really good idea, finally meet that person and then realize, it doesn’t suit that person’s character at all or he/she doesn’t like the idea or whatever…

Don’t you meet first, exchange ideas of what you want to do for the shooting, plan things and then have the final shooting?

No, nobody has time for that! The best thing is to be there early, try to get to know the person and improvise with what that person gives you. You have to match that person’s character. That Carsten Nicolai photo would never work for a - let’s say - jazz musician! The idea would only develop together with the person you meet. Even if it’s your own idea of what you want to shoot, it is not really “your own idea”, because you would never have that same idea with another person. Things just happen. It’s a really interesting process of how one develops an idea for a photo actually…

What was the idea behind this photo of Ladytron then?

That was absolutely no idea! That was the worst picture ever looking at the negatives, more like a snapshot really! We wanted to take some photos in the Liverpool underground, walked out of the door and I thought: Hey! The light coming through the half-opened door is actually quite good in here, so I stopped them, told them to turn around for a second, took the shot and that was it. When reviewing the negatives I saw something of a Rembrandt in it, that golden glow… I liked that, but the background was terrible, so I had to retouch quite a lot later on in Photoshop.

You actually took a little break from your photographer-life and toured Europe with Ladytron as their bassist for about 9 months. How was your time together in Liverpool?

Liverpool is rough but honest! Of all places I must say it was the toughest experience, a lot of British bar-fights with chairs flying through the air, incredible concerts, a bit too many drugs… No! Actually Rio was tougher, but now I am in Japan… that’s pure Zen for me after the last two years, really!

In your time in Berlin you got to take a lot of music-shots, often of people when they were still far from famous: Chilli Gonzales or Peaches for example. Tell us how it all happened!

I was playing in a bands called Minitchêv and we created our own very small indie label called Fucky, so we also produced all our records by ourselves. We had more songs than anybody, but at every rehearsal we had to create more new songs because we couldn’t remember the ones we played before… (laughs) At one point we started recording them with our answering machine, which is also why many of the recordings published on vinyl are of really bad quality and start with a BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

We then started playing with Jeans Team, but then they became rich and famous and we became photographers, record collectors and mamas! (laughs)

Jeans Team got this German perfectionism and they are very proud of playing everything live and “by hand” - but when you then listen to their music it sounds like a midi-machine. Super precise!

They are those kind of guys who think about a song they are gonna play for 6 months and then play it as if the song has always been there. As if it had just come out of an electrical socket.

I also like Konrad Sprenger and that other project of Christian Flamm, who I really appreciate, I think it s called “Group Of People”, that s really good stuff… and Boredoms! …but that s not very “Berlin-ish”… Anyway: I love Boredoms! And Pan Sonic! Masha Qrella, Komeit, and and and … I could go on forever, but I think that would explode the interview… (laughs)

You were hanigng out in the club called “Galerie BerlinTokio” in Berlin a few years back, which was then the melting-pot of the creative scene - for about 6 years in total. That is also where you met Rafael Horzon, who basically invited you over to Tokyo from Rio to collaborate on the Standardportraet project during Tokyo Designer’s Week…

Yes, they invited me over to Tokyo and while they were having fun I was hanging out at the container exhibition all day, exhibiting, taking more photos for the Standardportraet and watching Design Week through the open container door drinking coffee…

How was it when you first met Rafael in Berlin and what evolved from that?

When I first met him, I didn’t even know who he was, that he actually started the “Galerie BerlinTokio”… He was wearing a yellow baseball cap that had “MÜTZE” (hat) written on it with a marker pen. He looked as if he was on the wrong party that night and I think asked Rafael if he was from Wedding because he looked so displaced! (laughs) He’s probably one of the smartest people I know…

I became some kind of official photographer of “Galerie BerlinTokio” for some time. Officially it was actually a gallery, not a club. In order to avoid the annoying process to get a license for a bar you would just claim that it’s a gallery and pretend to have openings every night. That is the Berlin way I guess. It was a very small club in the basement and there were always weird concerts happening and weird exhibitions. It was just a very energizing place.

Chilli Gonzales played there even before he recorded his first records. He always used the equipment of the other bands who played before him so when the musicians finished having a drink at the bar, all they could think of was: Oh my god! Here is that freak playing the piano again! (ha ha ha)

I photographed Peaches when she just came to Berlin in Chilli Gonzales’ apartment, Chicks on Speed when they were still working as gallery staff…

…looking at Sebastian’s portfolio…

Oh! Here is that photo of Einstürzende Neubauten! I suppose that you shouldn’t repeat now what you told me about this hated photo shooting already….

No, I shouldn’t say that! I’ve never been complaining about anyone, but Xxxxx Xxxxxxx is a real XXXXXXX!

Here is a photo of Stefan Müller and Tom Zipp who are both currently German art avantgarde: Stefan is at Gallery Nagel, which is a very important gallery right now and Tom is at Saatchi&Saatchi in London doing very very big paintings.

While you were taking photos for music magazine Spex - which of the photo sessions did you enjoy most?

MASHA QRELLA, that was good fun! She was really great to take photos of.

Also Jimi Tenor was great. Everybody warned me before the shooting: watch out, he is an asshole, you will hate him! And then I met him just outside of Berlin on one of the golf courses and had one of the funniest and best shootings I have ever had. He has a very good sense of humor: slightly sarcastic all the time but very much to the point.

Someone whispered in my ear, that you are the ultimate Photoshop-retouch-master. True? And … what are these “Masks” on your website actually?

“They” asked me to take really neutral pictures of “normal” women, so “they” gathered some women from their own office, we had that big studio in Hamburg and a make up artist worked on each model for about 1-2 hours just to make them look as if they really weren’t wearing any make up and just got out of bed.

When I presented the photos to the client they said: “Actually we would like to have them retouched a little bit. Would you mind?” So I started to clean up some bits here and there, make them a little more perfect and finally sent them over - but they wanted more! “This eye is still to low, the shoulder to high,… so I started to cut and paste eyes, mirror the shoulders etc until - after a whole week of retouching - they looked really perfect and…. un-natural. (laughs).

Now that you are here in Tokyo - what are you going to do?

I just took some photos of SANAA - you know the Japanese architects - for Icon magazine, and I will probably meet Cyril from Tokion magazine next week to plan some shootings… some things already coming my way!

I would also like to work in fashion. I actually hate fashion, but that is the reason why I would like to work in it, so I can change it! (laughs)

Any future plans, any vision for a life in Tokyo?

To get a bigger apartment… (ha ha ha)
No, everything is interesting, really. I want to photograph all the crazy people in Tokyo.

Oh! you’ve got lots to do then! (laugh) Hope you find the jobs you like and happy to see, that people already start fighting about who can work with you - although you pretty much just arrived. Good luck!

8 Comments

1. Fantastique stuff! :)

   Posted by: Andrey Sorochan on November 18th, 2006 at 12:19 am

2. body full of tatto is so cool./

   Posted by: munchy on November 18th, 2006 at 12:55 am

3. Sebastian’s work is really really good.
   he can really make it huge here ( and anywhere else as well …)

   Posted by: item idem on November 19th, 2006 at 4:59 pm

4. awesome awesome post.
   thanks so much pingmag! :)

   Posted by: sighmon on November 20th, 2006 at 2:40 pm

5. cool guy. exciting life!

   Posted by: keanu on November 20th, 2006 at 5:57 pm

6. Great article, love to hear about professionals working in the moment, they see something, go with it, and shoot it, and get great results, never mind setting up for 3 hours.

   Posted by: Marko on November 29th, 2006 at 1:41 pm

7. i luv that pic of mickey mouse i wanna get 1 as a chair

   Posted by: smelly bob on February 6th, 2007 at 10:29 pm

8. [...] Sebastian Mayer, for those marvellous picts he took of Leah and Lee! Yes, that Sebastian which was featured at PingMag [...]

   Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » DRIFT: audio visual synergies on April 27th, 2007 at 7:00 pm

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