"I love music and what it does to people playing it," explains Pat Graham, a music photographer who has shot everyone from Bikini Kill to The Shins. "The more I photographed musicians, the more I realized how dedicated they are to the art and how much they risk just to play." His first book, Silent Pictures, chronicles Graham's work over the past two decades, and coincides with an exhibition at Needles & Pens, on view through early-November. Send us an email here for your chance to win a signed copy of his book and read on for the back story behind one of this favorite images!

"It's hard to choose a favorite photo, because they all mean different things to me, but the one of the frozen road in Montana has a good story. It's from Modest Mouse's first national tour. We had around four days to get from Washington State to Chicago. The drive started out slowly and peacefully, but soon, we spotted little flakes of snow falling. As we drove the snow got heavier and we slowed to a crawl. Ignoring all of the signs for places to put chains on the tires, we carried on.

Eric was driving as we approached a bridge high over a road below. I had my seatbelt off, trying to snap a photo of the snow, when all of sudden we started sliding out on the bridge. It seemed like we were going over when BAM!—the guard rail stopped us. We all got out of the van and hugged or something. Then we put the chains on, and continued on.

The radio said all of the roads in Montana were closed but one, so we took it. We had to speed just to plow through the snowdrifts that were pilling up. Suddenly, something loomed in the middle of the road up ahead. It was a frozen cow. It looked just like like Jack Nicholson in the final scene of "The Shining." We were so freaked out that we just kept driving into the white blackness.

Suddenly, the van stopped and the road was gone. We put socks on our hands and tried to dig out, but had no luck. A car pulled up a few hundred yards behind us, so we crawled through the snow and got in with the driver. We sat there until morning, when a few tractors came by and pulled our van out. It started, so we kept driving. That photograph is from that day when we drove out—it was the first moment when I felt able to take a picture, when I realized I wasn't going to die in a snow storm!"

Needles & Pens is located at 3253 16th Street, (415) 255-1534.

- Caroline Stanley

Similar Topics:art, gallery, music

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