Photography exhibit explores rock ‘n’ roll fandom

Before the almighty internet held sway over practically everything, newspapers connected people to their communities. And a key component of the local newspaper staff was the photography department, a team of skilled professionals who produced images complimentary to the news, sports and features the writers and editors turned out seven days a week.

Nobody on the photo staff liked taking in-concert photos to go with reviews. Shows were almost always at night, usually on a Friday or Saturday, and in order to get your picture in by deadline for the next day’s paper, you had to rush back to the office darkroom, develop your negatives and make your print, and hand it off to the person in charge (this was before digital photography changed the rules). By then, it was midnight or later.

Jay Nolan was the exception: “They’d say ‘Aren’t you off that day?’ And I’d say ‘It doesn’t matter, I’ll come in and shoot that.’”

Many of the concert shots he took between 1990 and 2011, during his tenures at several Florida papers, make up the majority of Fandom: Celebrating Rock & Roll, on view at the Florida Museum of the Photographic Arts in Tampa through March 2.

Nolan will give an Artist Talk at the museum Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

Livestock Surger, March 25, 1995, Zephyrhills, Florida.

He arrived here – to the best of his recollection – in 1988, to work as an intern, then as a stringer (aka correspondent) at the Lakeland Ledger. “I was shooting music before I even came down to Florida,” Nolan explains. “In Minneapolis I was shooting music for a couple of fanzines. Here in Florida, because I was either the new guy or the stringer or the intern, it took a while before I got music assignments. They would send me to shoot sports like anybody else.”

Within a few years, he was a staff photographer for the Tampa Tribune. “I didn’t really care for sports that much,” he confesses. “I really didn’t have an aptitude for that. They would usually give the sports assignments to somebody else, and when they realized how much I loved music they sent me to whatever music there was. Whether it was 2 Live Crew, Willie Nelson or Marilyn Manson, it just didn’t matter. I’d shoot ‘em all. That was my niche. I liked that.”

Exhibit curator Robin O’Dell was particularly drawn to Nolan’s in-the-moment captures of frenetic fans, watching their heroes onstage. There are plenty of artist photos in the exhibit, but some of the most compelling of the 27 Nolan images are of audiences, including crowd-surfing bodies at Livestock, and moments of ecstasy at an Alice in Chains show.

There’s real rock ‘n’ roll history in the vintage prints, too – the members of U2 are shown, surrounded by security and media (including rock photography legend Annie Leibovitz), arriving at the Lakeland Civic Center in February, 1992.

The superstar Irish band had been rehearsing at the venue for several days, in preparation for their worldwide ZOO TV tour.

Lenny Kravitz, Feb. 8, 1992, Lakeland Civic Center.

It’s obvious from his stage shots that Nolan has an eye for just the right moment. He readily admits that news and sports were not his forte, just as other shooters weren’t as good at concert photos.

“You get guys that know how to make it sing … and you get guys that are just struggling to make it work, at any level,” he says. “You know, that happens with whatever. But I really applied myself. I gave it 110 percent when they would send me to a music thing.”

Nolan hasn’t been to the Florida Museum of the Photographic Arts since the exhibit’s opening night celebration Nov. 21. “It’s a blur,” he says. “I was just absolutely stunned by the amount of people that showed up.”

Fandom: Celebrating Rock & Roll pairs Nolan’s photography with an extensive collection of memorabilia belonging to one-time record executive Davy Alder.

Alder will do his own Artist Talk come January; for Nolan, Thursday’s conversation will be entirely unscripted and off the cuff.

“I do the Great American Teach-In every year at Blake High School, and I very rarely have anything prepared for the kids,” the photographer explains. “But I do like to show them pictures of what I did in the past – and what I’m doing now kind of thing.” (Visit his photography website here.)

“I’m going to use the same thought process on Thursday as I do with the kids at Blake. I’m going to let them lead the discussion. It’s easy for me to jump in anywhere they want to pick up; I can definitely go with the flow, wherever they want to go.”

For details on the exhibit, and Thursday’s talk, visit the Florida Museum of the Photographic Arts website.

Overkill (1987) and fans in Minneapolis.