In 1978, photographer Catherine Vanaria graduated from Hartford Art School in Connecticut, moved to Boston on a whim, and began shooting her first major body of work. Her housemates were musicians and she began documenting her life with them around the house they shared. Eventually, their band used her shots for publicity and within a few months the Boston music fanzines started approaching her for material.

Over the years that followed, she shot concerts of both local and touring bands in Boston venues like the Paradise, the Orpheum and the Metro. The photographs capture spontaneous stage moments at which the performers seem to be most uniquely themselves: Billy Zoom (X) in a deep lunge in command of his guitar; Mick Jones caught mid-leap as he jumps out of the frame in a rock and roll ascension; a coy glance from Robin Zander; the smoldering stage presence of Joan Jett. The insight into each performer makes the shots more than just documentation of an era. Toward the end of her Boston days, she turned the camera on the audience. Vanaria did a series of slam dancers captured with an old 4”x5” press camera. The raw energy of the crowd is frozen in a moment by the flash.

Though she no longer shoots concerts, there are hints of her early rock and roll work in both her formal portraits and street photography — the way she reveals her subjects, and often finds uncommon compositional elements to link together in each frame.

Catherine Vanaria’s work has been published in XTC: Song Stories (Hyperion, 1998), Exposure: Special Edition extended booklet accompanying Robert Fripp’s re-release (Discipline, 2006), as well as various fanzines. Her portrait work is in the Polaroid Collection, as well as numerous private collections, and has been exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield, CT).

Vanaria is currently an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Western Connecticut State University, in Danbury, Connecticut, as well as co-owner of Connecticut Photographics, a photo lab and fine art printers also located in Danbury. She will receive her MA in photography at Savannah College of Art and Design in May, 2008.

February 19, 2008, Danbury, CT USA

LG: So what brought you up to Boston after you went to school [in Hartford]?

CAV: I had to figure out where I wanted to go right after graduation and I was talking to my mother on the phone and I realized I didn’t want to go home. I was lucky because I had a friend that was already living in Boston and he had a room that just opened up in his house. That was it—no job, no prospects, it was like “Where am I going? I want to go to Boston.” I was flying by the seat of my pants, which is what I do on a regular basis.

LG: How soon after you got there did you start shooting shows? How did shooting shows come about?

CAV: The house that I moved into was a bunch of musicians and I began to photograph them, and as their popularity began to grow, they were using my photographs, and some people began to see my work. There were fanzines that were beginning to sprout up so they would come to me and they’d go “Well, look, we need a photographer to cover a show, would you mind?” I’d say it was within three months of me moving there, that I actually started shooting not just the band, but also anybody else, for the fanzines. The best part was that around that three-month mark I made the connection at MIT and was able to get use of their darkrooms, because otherwise I had no darkroom.

LG: Were you working there at that point?

CAV: I wasn’t working at MIT yet. I was working at the art supply store Hatfield’s Color Shop on Boylston Street in downtown Boston. And I remember on a Saturday morning taking a walk down to MIT to see a photo show which was Ansel Adams and somebody else. Landscape stuff, and I remember going in to the gallery and it was great. I saw the show, and then I realized it was in part of their darkroom, so I went and started talking to somebody and they said, “Well we need somebody to cover Saturdays,” and I’m like, “That’s a piece of cake.” And they said I’d get to use the darkrooms. So I said, “Sign me up!”

So, I made connections with the person who was in charge, this guy named Ted, and he said, “Ok, you’re in.” I started a week later and I worked there 2 years until they closed the labs down completely. "I also started a full time job at Boris Color Lab to pay the rent.

I did MIT on the side because it was such a good connection. At that point Judy [photographer Judith Black] had joined on. She had become a graduate student there so I was seeing her a lot, and the amount of photographers that were walking in the door — it was an amazing place to be.

LG: What was the general atmosphere in Boston like at that point? Was there a unified music scene?

CAV: There was a very unified music scene because it was all based around MIT’s radio station, WMBR. Also WBCN surprisingly at that time was very pro-alternative. Boston’s a music town, it always has been a music town, so it was a good place to be. There was so much energy coming from the radio stations. They were supporting not only different bands coming in, they were supporting the local acts, so because of that there was a fairly strong music community.

It wasn’t like what was going on in New York. I don’t remember the music scene crossing into the art scene as it did down in New York, I think the music scene was pretty separate. There was a lot more freedom at that time. People were allowed to take pictures. The only time that it was weird, but it was a benefit to me was when Talking Heads played the Paradise and surprisingly they were not allowing anyone to take pictures, except for me. I was like, “Wow, this is a luxury I’ve never had.”

LG: How did you get that gig?

CAV: That was for one of the fanzines. They said just show up; there will be a ticket with your name. They made the arrangements. They’d get you on the guest list, and you just…

LG: So you didn’t have to do your own legwork…

CAV: But I didn’t get paid. It was like, “Here, there’s two tickets, take some pictures, we need them.” The only time I wasn’t really able to get anything and the fanzine was kind of disappointed was when Public Image Limited played the Orpheum, and I was sitting with the writer. We couldn’t move, we had orchestra seats, but everybody and their brother was jammed in there, and it was like…what the hell? The shots that I took sucked so bad, and I remember the writer and I both leaving the show like within the second or third song. So I got on the subway and went back home.

LG: So you’d go alone and then meet up with these other photographers?

CAV: There was one other woman named B.C. Kagan that was shooting up Boston, I think she is in New York City now and there was this guy, I can’t remember his name, and of course Phil N. Flash [Phil Spring]. That pretty much sums up the scene. There was a group of photographers that showed up at shows, and we were all supportive of each other. It was a good time, a really good time.

LG: What were some of the fanzines?

CAV: Oh, I can’t remember.

LG: You don’t have them stashed somewhere?

CAV: I have nothing! Zip. That stuff disappeared. I don’t even remember getting copies that’s how it was. Hi, just turn your stuff in…and then it went out and that was it. They never kept anything for you.

LG: I wonder if we can find any of those thru the web?

CAV: Maybe, I can’t promise that, I really can’t promise that. It would be from 78 to around 83. Once I started shooting the slam dancing I got away from the regular shows. I was done with it at that point.

LG: What changed?

CAV: The fanzines dried up. They went out of business. The Boston Phoenix was still covering rock and roll, and there was another newspaper, and I think it was the Boston Real Paper. There were no phone calls, and at that point I had to think about my day job. I still had to pay the rent.

LG: What were the venues like as an atmosphere to shoot in?

CAV: The Paradise was the best place to shoot because it was a 200-seat club, and you were six to eight feet from the performer. They had good lighting, and the stage was about three to four feet off the floor. We would get on our knees, and we had full access to the stage. We never had seating, but that was always a blessing.

Again, if you’re working with a group of people who know how to shoot, and everybody is respectful of each other’s way of shooting — we all let each other move around. My thing was — never get in the audience’s way, never block their view, because then you get somebody pissed. I knew when to stay low and let them have a good time behind me, and then I started realizing I should turn the camera on them because they were kind of interesting, too. That was a real wake-up call.

The next best was the Orpheum Theater, but if you got the Orpheum gig, sitting at the Orpheum in the orchestra is a pain in the ass, even if you had front row seats it was a drag. The best location would be to get front row seats in the loge, then you’re angled down, shooting with a longer lens, but you’re getting the stage and there were no problems. The only problem with the loge was you would have to concern yourself with the fact that the damn place was constantly vibrating, because if the Clash is onstage, everyone’s jumping and you’re bouncing with them. So, it took time to figure out how to shoot that way. Once I figured that out, everything was gravy.

LG: What kind of gear were you using at that point for most of those shows?

CAV: My 35 was the Nikon F with the 24mm lens, a 105mm lens and at one point I got my hands on a 200, but I got rid of that quick. Mostly the 24 and the 105 were the two lenses, and that was it. I had no other zooms, I had nothing. I stayed limited and I was fine, I was happy with them.

There was a ballroom where Lene Lovich was. It was one of the first times I shot with flash, and I was disappointed. The images work, but it’s flash and it’s a very different look.

Then the slam dancing came and opened up a whole new avenue. That was nice, and depending on the location, my favorite place to shoot was the Cambridge YWCA because then you could get on stage. And the Paradise, when they started having their all ages shows, they allowed us to get onstage, and I got a whole different perspective and that just opened up. At that point I was shooting 4x5 — I was the crazy woman who shows up with this big bag and a big flash.

They were difficult to shoot, I had such shallow depth of field, ridiculous, but I still had a good time with it. It was important; it was a breakthrough for me. You did take your life in your hands when you went to the shows. At the all ages shows, there was chaos all around you.

LG: Did you ever get knocked around?

CAV: I remember getting shoved a lot, but I always positioned myself against something, so I wasn’t in the thick of it. I was either to the side or in the back of it. I didn’t want to participate in it; I just wanted to catch it.

Storyville was a little strange, because kids were diving over the speaker cabinets, and were basically diving over me. Once I caught on to that, I realized I had to be careful. The Channel was fine, I knew my location. The Paradise was fine. They were great clubs.

It was the bigger places where you had a real problem. Like I say, if you went to the Orpheum and you were on the floor, forget it, you were never going to see anything and you were never going to take a good picture. The smaller clubs were always the best.

LG: Did you ever have much interaction with the bands afterward or beforehand?

CAV: Occasionally I would get the opportunity to go up and meet them, but not often.

LG: Any stories?

CAV: Bill Bruford thought I was his sister-in-law. I said, “No, sorry.” He even called out to me “Cathy!” Yeah, but the wrong one…

Gentle Giant was great when I got to meet them, because I was with the reporter. He was going up to interview them and said lets go upstairs and take some pictures in the green room. The green room was smaller than our darkrooms, and there was no light in there, but I did get some photographs. They were very, very nice.

Robert Palmer was very nice to me. UK when I saw them, when I went up to them they asked me if I knew any good bars, and said sorry, you’re asking the wrong person. I pointed them toward Harvard Square. A lot of times, I just shot the shows and left.

LG: How does it feel looking back on this body of work?

CAV: Very weird because I’ve got students now doing the same kind of thing, and I say to them I want more from you. I’m pushing what I should’ve done on them. I didn’t push myself enough. My job as a teacher is to tell them: don’t fall short. I want to see photographs of the bands setting up, them practicing.

Since I’ve invigorated a group of students to work in a similar way, it’s gotten me to reopen this chapter and and look at contact sheets and print photos that have never seen the light of day.

Lys Guillorn is a singer-songwriter and photographic printmaker, from Danbury, Connecticut.

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