Portrait Project: Research 2

Another music photographer that I will do research into will be Jim Marshall(1936-2010). According to his own biography, he was well-known for "his iconic music photography" and his photographs were published through magazine features, music album covers and his books. He has photographed over a million black-and-white colour negatives, and I will be looking into one of his work. 


The Grateful Dead, Haight Street Fair, San Francisco, March 3, 1968

This is an image that taken in 1968, when the Grateful Dead was performing on a stage in Haight Street Fair, San Francisco. The photograph was taken in a black-and-white film, as at that time colour films were not very popularised. As we can see, Marshall used high angle to photograph the band and the audience, and this created a contrast between the foreground and the background. In the foreground, that occupied the lower half of the frame, was the members of the Grateful Dead playing with their instruments, while the background was the endless and uncountable audiences and people that join the street festival on the street. It also created another contrast that the members were at a higher level than the people on the ground, which meant that the members of the band were the protagonists of the photograph. It is inarguably that the photograph was taken in the daytime, as there weren't any noise found in the photograph, and from the photograph we could see that the sky at the background was bright, meaning that Marshall did not used a high sensitive ISO film for a daylight photography. The photograph also stood out that the Grateful Dead was a successful band, as they were able to attract countless people to respond to their call and join the festival. 

In fact, according to CNN's writer Almond (2019), it was the band's last free concert on the street. According to Shackleford (2024), that the band co-sponsored the festival as they were looking for spirit-free movements at that time, and increased the tension between the police and the youth that joined the festival.


Reference List

Almond, K. (2019), Iconic shots from the ‘godfather’ of rock photography, CNN, Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/10/entertainment/jim-marshall-cnnphotos/index.html, Accessed 6 Apr. 2024.

Jim Marshall Photography LLC (n.d.), About | Jim Marshall Photography LLC, Available at: https://www.jimmarshallphotographyllc.com/about, Accessed 6 Apr. 2024.

Shackleford, T. (2024), Grateful Dead Close Down Haight Street For Free Concert, On This Day In 1968, Live 4 Live Music, Available at: https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/grateful-dead-haight-street-free-concert-on-this-day-1968/, Accessed 6 Apr. 2024.

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