Jimmy Steinfeldt Interview Of Neil Zlozower

Michael Hepworth

By Jimmy Steinfeldt

Jimmy Steinfeldt: How often do you clean your lens?

HOLLYWOOD (Perfect Music Today) 9/26/17/–Neil Zlozower: Not very often. I don’t shoot very often in this day and age. I’ll take a look at the lens if I remember to. If it’s dirty I’ll usually breathe on it and wipe it with my shirt.

JS: What photographers influenced you?

NZ: The greatest Rock and Roll photographer ever was Jim Marshall. No ifs ands or buts. I was always in awe of Jim. He was a good friend of mine. He slept on my couch a few times when he was down in L.A. I like to follow in his footsteps. Not as far as photography goes but about his attitude in general, about business ethics. Don’t be taken advantage of or put up with any bullshit from anybody. Being a bad ass motherfucker. That’s why I liked Jim Marshall. He didn’t take any shit from anybody. He did things his way. He wasn’t scared to speak his mind. I like to think I have those same traits that Jim had. Anyone who has dealt with me I think would agree with that.

Jim shot pictures of people I don’t even like and I was like “Oh my god I want to buy that photo.” He knew how to catch those moments. That’s a lost art. He lived in a time when Rock and Roll music photography was different. He would go there and he would eat with the people, he would do drugs with the people, he would sleep on their floor, he would go to the market with them. He was more of a photo-journalist. Now a days it’s like “OK Neil you have a shoot with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and they will come to your studio at 12:57pm and they have to be out at 1:49pm.” You have so many minutes to do whatever you are going to do with them and then they leave. So there isn’t any spending time with the artist, getting to know them. No more spending hours with the band let alone days like Jim would do.

JS: Who else influenced your photography?

NZ: The bands and artists themselves. Most rock photographers, me included, started off as glorified music fans. We’d go to concerts and see our idols. When I was a young kid I went to Lewins Record Paradise on Hollywood Blvd where they sold imported records of bands. I was a big Rolling Stones fanatic when I was 13 or 14. I’d take the bus to La Brea and Hollywood with my friend Kenny Kubernik. We’d pass by familiar stores knowing we were getting closer and closer and closer and finally we’d arrive a Lewins.

We could find the Stones first record England’s Newest Hit Makers but it was the imported version with a different photo than the American cover. It even had some different songs. The Jimmy Hendrix album Are You Experienced had the song “Red House” on it and it didn’t have “Purple Haze” on it. We thought that was the coolest thing in the world. The import records back then were seven dollars and the regular American release was three dollars. We barely had three dollars but the store also sold 8x10s of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and other bands. We would buy 8x10s of the Rolling Stones. “Oh look at this photo of Mick, look at this one of Keith, look at this one of Brian Jones. His hair is so cool.” We’d spend a few bucks buying a few pictures and come home like little glorified fans and put them on the walls of our bedrooms. So Lewins Records Paradise had a lot to do with me starting to shoot photography. I bought a camera not to make any money, or a living, or a career, or a profession with but to just hang my idols on my bedroom wall.

JS: What cameras are you shooting with these days?

NZ: I’m currently using the Canon 5D Mark I.

JS: What was your first camera?

NZ: My first camera was when some guy brought it into my dad’s liquor store when I was working there making 50 cents an hour. I went home with $5 at the end of the day. So this guy walks in and say’s “Anyone here interested in my buying this camera?” He brought it in a brown paper shopping bag. It was called a TARON. It was a range finder camera with all these extra screw in lenses. I knew absolutely nothing about cameras but I said “Dad, dad look at this thing. This is really cool. Can I buy it? Can I buy it?” The guy wanted seventy bucks for it which was probably 15 days of me working. I bought the camera. I used to play with it but I don’t think I even ever loaded a roll of film in it. I’ve never seen another TARON but I did once go online just to see if I could find one. Yes on Ebay they are out there. I traded mine with a kid in high school for a 3 1/4 x 3 3/4 Graflex viewfinder camera.

Later my dad took me to a pawn shop in Whittier and I bought a Honeywell Pentax H3v. It was actually a great camera. It didn’t even have a built in meter because it wasn’t the top of the line. I took it to shows and that’s what I shot my first show with in 1969. Then I sold it to my friend, Todd Gray, who became my very fist photography partner. Then I bought a Nikon FTN which is hanging on the wall right now in my office.

JS: My first camera was similar to the Pentax. It was the Minolta SRT 201.

NZ: That was a good camera. I was jealous of those people who had that camera because it was better then the Pentax. But I shot some pretty iconic photos with my Honeywell Pentax like The Who at Anaheim Stadium in 1970 and I still sell those pictures all the time.

JS: Is there a camera you always wanted but never got?

NZ: No, not really. I’m not a techie where I wanted every new thing. Usually if I wanted something I was able to buy it. I was fairly successful at an early age. Don’t forget though back when I started there weren’t many Rock and Roll photographers. Now there’s billions of them because it takes no talent anymore to shoot a great photo if you ask me. That’s one of the reasons I really don’t care if I don’t shoot any more photos. I want to go out on top. I don’t want to be one of these guys in the pit who has to look on the back of my camera to see if what I just shot was good or not. I lived in a day when you had to know what you were doing. You had to use a light meter to take readings. There was no preview in the back of the camera to see if it was too light or too dark. You had to know your craft back when I was doing it. With the digital cameras anybody can do it. Also you can give me a piece of shit camera and I can shoot a great photo.

Once I was at a Stone Temple Pilots show at the Universal Amphitheater. There was a new “on the scene photographer” and he had all the new Nikon cameras around his neck and he thought he was the coolest thing since bubble gum. He looks at me with my old cameras including my Nikon F2 which had been with me all over the world shooting the biggest rock bands in the world: Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin. The guy says “Hey Neil when are you gonna get rid of all that old junk and buy some new cameras?” I just looked at him and said “It’s not the gear that makes the photographer, it’s the photographer that makes the photographer.”

My biggest life changing camera that totally made a whole new life style for me is the Mamiya RZ67. It opened my eyes to things I hadn’t seen before. That was the greatest camera ever invented. I used to have Hasselblads and I hated them. I had the 500ELM, 500 CM. I had many lenses the 250, 150, 80. I had an SWC, a 50 wide angle and 40 fisheye. I had everything. I got rid of them all and bought a Mamiya and it was a life changing moment.

JS: Did you ever do stills for movies?

NZ: No, I’m a Rock and Roll photographer. People always asked me “When are you going to become a director and do music videos?” Never, I’m not a movie photographer, a videographer, or a director. I am a still photographer, a Rock and Roll still photographer for the last 47 years.

JS: What are you concentrating on now?

NZ: After years of shooting photos I’ve moved on. First off, the music industry is one big piece of shit. The photo industry, music in particular, is one big piece of shit. Back in the days when there was film and processing, clients hired real photographers that knew what they were doing. We would charge the clients back for film and processing. Today you can take 1000s of photos on a memory card for free.

So today people don’t want to hire real photographers. They get the guy in the mail-room to shoot the photos and that’s it. The photos could show a tree growing out of the subject’s head in the back ground because the photographer doesn’t notice it. Or the subject could be posing in a way where he has three chins and the photographer is too timid to say “Hey stand like this and stick your chin out and you won’t have three chins,’” but the client today will simply photo shop the problem and that’s it. They pay the photographers next to nothing. They don’t need a professional photographer. These amateurs are good enough. Then they spend days trying to correct the mistakes in photo shop. One reason I’ve lasted so long is I have an eye for detail. When a client gets my photos there’s not much to change on them.

If I never pick up a camera again it’s OK. I still do photo-shoots but the client has to pay the fee I want. In 2011 myself and New York photographer Eddie Malluk started the photo agency Atlas Icons. That’s what I enjoy working on. I’m still in the music industry and photography business, but I own a photo agency. We license my photos as well as the photos of Igor Vidyashev, Eddie Malluk, Baron Wolman, William Haynes, and Annamaria DiSanto . .and many other photographers. That’s where I make my money now. Unlike other photo agencies that sell photos for pennies we actually get real money for real photos.

JS: Is there anyone you’d like to photograph that you never photographed?

NZ: The Beatles were gone just before I started shooting photos. I was never a big Elvis fan. He was called the king of Rock and Roll but to me he’s no king because he didn’t write his songs. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, to me those guys are the kings. If I could work one on one with one person it would be Jerry Lee Lewis. First of all because he reminds me of me. He’s a bad ass motherfucker!! He doesn’t take any shit from anybody! He’s just one cool bad ass dude. I love his music and he wrote brilliant songs. He’s probably the only artist who could sing country music and I’ll like it. I love his music, I love what he stood for.

JS: What advice would you have for a young person who wants to pursue photography as a career?

NZ: Figure out something else to do.

JS: What’s next for Neil Zlozower?

NZ: I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up. I have no future plans. I don’t like traveling. I enjoy spending time at home with my kid every night watching movies. I really don’t go out. I usually make dinner every night for me and my kid. I’m usually in bed by 9 o’clock watching the news, go to sleep by 10 and I’m up around 6:30 or 7.

I like dabbling with cars and motorcycles. When I die I want to be remembered as a car/motorcycle “aficionado/connoisseur” and not that legendary photography who shot all those iconic bands. Because in my mind That guy doesn’t even exist anymore. That guy is dead and gone. I’ve done things, seen things, participated in things that other human beings can only dream about. If I try to think of me back then that guy being at Led Zeppelin shows in 1975 or going on tour with Van Halen from 1978 to 1984 or Motely Crue or Guns N’ Roses I don’t even remember that stuff. It’s like a blur of the past. I’ve accomplished a lot in my life. I’ve had a wonderful life. If I die tomorrow I would have a smile on my face.

To learn more about Neil Zlozower:

https://www.zloz.com/

http://www.atlasicons.com/