Page 11 - AdNews May-June 2020

It may seem a contradiction that this power tech-head’s other life is as a longtime photographer of live music gigs - albeit a life freeze-framed for the foreseeable future amid COVID-19 social distancing and lockdowns.
Yet it’s all in keeping with Kirk’s eclectic Twitter CV: “Music nerd and gadget magpie [who offers] occasional ravings on media, people, and technology”.
“Calling myself a ‘photographer’ is stretching the definition, but I’ve been inexpertly pointing a camera at bands since the 90s,” Kirk tells AdNews.
“I’m entirely self-taught, on the basis that I made a conscious choice that I absolutely didn’t/don’t want to do it for money.
“As a result, I’ve never hassled professional music photographers for tips, figuring it’d be fun to just try and work it out.
“Anything I’ve learned though has come from a deeply unattractive place of jealousy.”
Kirk cites Australian music and lifestyle photographers including Tom Wilkinson, Pete Dovgan, April Josie and Dani Hansen as inspiration for his work: “They are consistently producing absolutely amazing shots that I try
to learn from - and emulate.”
Kirk explains the genesis of his music photography side career.
“It was for the two most common reasons that people end up writing
about or photographing bands.
“Firstly, I suck out loud as a musician. Secondly, I was too broke to
afford gig tickets.
“Back in the good old days, before the internet, you could literally wander
into virtually any venue at about four in the afternoon, claim you were there
ABOVE: Montaigne at the Newsagency, Sydney; Solo Career at Waywards; Steve Symth at the Kings Cross Hotel.
OPPOSITE PAGE: 2oolit at the Valve Bar.
to interview the band, and just stroll on in. Carrying a camera was my get-into-gigs-free card.
“I started off making fanzines and then a few actual magazines, then websites, and over the years it just became so ingrained that I can’t even imagine not doing it now.”
Back in the day, Kirk followed and photographed bigger, bet- ter-known bands.
But there came a point where to shoot at festivals, or even at good-sized venues, journalists and photographers weren’t able to just show up anymore.
“Today (at least, pre-COVID-19 days!) you need to be in contact with the band themselves, their label, the promoter, or the PR agency to cover a gig,” Kirk says.
“You need to be organised and to be able to produce decent results. “I have to do enough of that at work, so I thought I’d just start showing up unannounced at shows
that I hadn’t been invited to.” This meant Kirk decided to gravitate towards little or unknown bands forging their way, but not just because it made his life
easier getting into gigs.
“I also wanted to actually give
something back,” he explains. “I earn a decent amount of money now, and since I spent my 20s blag- ging my way into every venue in Britain without so much as paying a penny, I figured Rule #1 would be to buy all my own tickets to start paying that back.
“I’m also a lifelong holder of minority opinions, so I also thought it’d be fun to restrict myself to only shooting emerging bands.
“That is, bands who were just starting out and who couldn’t afford to book a real photographer or were too new to be getting any press coverage.
“Admittedly it was pretty self-serving, too. There isn’t a single tiny venue where you can’t just stroll in and start taking photos (plus they never have photo barriers).
“All that said, tickets are insanely cheap anyway, if not free, at the just- starting-out end of the spectrum.
“I track every show I go to and, after literally hundreds and hun- dreds of shows, my average ticket price has been a whopping ... $4.36! Not even five bucks!
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