May 2007 Rock and Roll Photo of the Month - Prince
For May 2007's Rock and Roll Photo of the Month, Lengendary Rock and Roll photographer Richard E. Aaron recounts getting that perfect shot during the first few nights of Prince's Purple Rain Tour in 1985.
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May 2007 Rock and Roll Photo Of The Month By Richard E. Aaron
Prince - Purple Rain tour, Detroit. Prince opened his Purple Rain tour in the Motor City for a five day booking. At that time I was photo editor of a national rock & roll magazine, and we were doing a cover story on Prince. His record company and management gave me permission to shoot the opening of the tour, four nights in Detroit.
The first night before the first show, all the photographers were asked to come early to the venue to receive the do's and don'ts and their assigned positions for the show. As Prince was the hottest act in the country at the time, there were photographers from all over the world covering this event. We were placed on a box half way between the stage and the back of the coliseum, which was about 300 or more feet. We all had long lens on tripods, but I were still too far from the stage to get a decent shot. Prince's handlers said that if we were caught leaving the photo box, we would be ejected from the show. The longest lens that I had were a 300mm and a 600mm.
By the second night I was getting nothing and getting very edgy that I was not getting the cover shot that I needed. I had to do something about it. I knew that after the third song, the audience would get out of their chairs and stand on their seats. This would be the perfect time to make my move. I grabbed a pocket full of color and b&w film, took the cameras off the tripod and slung a camera with a 180mm lens on one shoulder and another camera with a 85mm lens on the other, and stuffed a 50mm in my pocket. A spot meter hung around my neck. In other words, I was pretty conspicuous. When the fourth song hit, right on cue the audience went wild and stood on their chairs. At that moment, all the security detail turned around to look at the stage and I jumped over the barrier and took off in to the center of the hall and down the isle. I bumped into a security guard and told him I was on my back from the rest room to my seat, he left me alone. Got to the third row and noticed that there was an empty seat in the middle. I guess that who ever was sitting in this seat was one of the people who had rushed to the stage. I could not believe it -- the perfect position! I looked through my cameras and smiled.
Tri-X 800ASA pushed 1/125sec. f/4 180mm lens Available light Nikon F3 Camera
