Sometimes you get to go back to a place you knew before.
Perhaps you made a photograph of a building, a cityscape, a person. Then when you come back, it still evokes the memory but it’s changed.
Kinda like high School Reunions
At SXSW, I was able to experience that in a very strange way.

Many years ago as a young pup photographer, Berkeley was home, and Sproul Plaza at the University Of California attracted many of the latest music acts. Talking Heads was enjoying huge brand new success with the song “Psycho Killer” and the entire freshman album was on fire.
Those of us who were following the whole scene couldn’t wait to see them in person performing for free on the campus.

In those days, there weren’t a ton of us shooting, and access was a pretty simple thing. So off I went in my VW bug to catch the scene.

This was just one of the shots from that day, a portrait of Tina Weymouth, bass player for the band.

© Damon Webster

At SXSW, I was daily perusing the schedule to see what I maybe missed in the pre-flight scheduling of events and sure enough, there it was: Chris Frantz, former drummer for Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, and Tina Weymouth, former bassist for Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club would be doing a panel discussion on CBGB’s.

Determined to recreate a shot from many years earlier, not sure why really, the press credentials got me the location I needed to give it a try.

It didn’t come close. It was similar, but sooo different.
The years had passed and one shot of an emerging rock star, just getting off stage, and another a seasoned pro, discussing rocks history had an energy shift that was palpable.

The memory came back though, and for just a short bit, the electricity of that day in Sproul Plaza.

Tina Weymouth and her husband Chris Frantz recently contributed backing vocals and percussion for hip hop group, Gorillaz.

If you’ve ever gone back to rephotograph a subject, years later, let us know.
Tell us the story, add the photos and we’ll give you space on the HOME page to share it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 27th, 2010 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Photo News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.