SLIPKNOT — THROUGH THE YEARS

FINDING THE FRAME INSIDE THE CHAOS

SLIPKNOT is one of those bands that can make a concert photographer feel like there are ten photographs happening at once.

There usually are.

Between the masks, movement, percussion, lighting, smoke and constantly changing positions onstage, the challenge is not finding something to photograph. The challenge is deciding what matters before the moment disappears.

DALLAS — THE MID-2010s

My SLIPKNOT archive is built from multiple Dallas performances during the mid-2010s, including nights at Gexa Energy Pavilion. Those shows gave me repeated opportunities to document the band while the visual identity of the live production continued evolving.

That repetition is important. One SLIPKNOT show can give you spectacle. Multiple shows begin to give you history.

COREY TAYLOR

At the center of the photographs is COREY TAYLOR. The mask changes the face, but it does not erase expression. Body language becomes even more important: the shoulders, the hands, the crouch at the edge of the stage, the way he drives into the microphone.

Those are the details that make a still photograph feel loud.

THE PROBLEM WITH SPECTACLE

A giant production can actually make a strong photograph harder. Fire and light are impressive in person, but they can overwhelm the subject in a frame. My job is to reduce all that chaos into one image where your eye knows exactly where to go.

Sometimes that means shooting wide. Sometimes it means ignoring everything except the mask, the microphone and a fraction of a second of expression.

DIFFERENT NIGHTS, DIFFERENT ANSWERS

No two SLIPKNOT sets have given me exactly the same visual solution. That is what keeps the archive interesting.

The photographs are connected by the band, but separated by masks, lighting, production and the person I was behind the camera each time.

MORE ERAS STILL TO COME

This archive is not finished. SLIPKNOT is exactly the kind of artist I want to keep documenting because every return gives the history another visual layer.

More masks. More stages. More chaos. More frames still to come.