Many Worlds I've Come
Jarid S. Johnson ~ Photographer
I started carting around a Kodak Brownie at age 12. Inspired by Ansel Adams, and my love of the outdoors, I made my first images in Yosemite National Park. Soon thereafter, my father Homer taught me how to process and print black and white film in the home darkroom.
My brother Jim took me to my first live shows, one being Dancing on the Outdoor Green at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco on May 26, 1973 featuring Waylon Jennings, the New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Grateful Dead. Live music and photography became a passionate combination and I started taking my camera to shows.
Concerts weren’t the most forgiving place to learn how to shoot, but with some practice, I created a style that worked with the high contrast concert lighting of the day. My father taught me the finer points of processing film using Agfa developer combined with sodium sulfide solution to greatly cut the grain of Kodak Tri-X film I pushed beyond its normal sensitivity.
I continued to shoot stills at shows in the San Francisco Bay Area and on the Monterey Peninsula, covering local acts and major artists, from venues like The Club of Monterey and the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, to Winterland Arena and Days on the Green at the Oakland Coliseum.
- My career trajectory took me into the world of video where I have worked since 1983 shooting music, entertainment and corporate video.
For the better part of my video production career, I had the incredible opportunity to shoot live concerts at the most venerable venues in the San Francisco Bay Area including the Old Fillmore, the Warfield Theater, the Great American Music Hall, The Independent and Bimbos 365 Club.
Much of my work ended up on DVD for notable artists including Neil Young, Phil Lesh & Friends, Paul McCartney, Richard Thompson, Trey Anastasio, Santana, Hot Tuna, Incubus, Los Lobos, Joe Satriani and Elvin Bishop, among others. For 24 seasons, I hoisted a video camera on my shoulder in the pit at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif., shooting hundreds of shows of every variety.
As a video camera operator, I documented music events for Bill Graham Presents in the early ’90s including the Tibetan Freedom Concert, Lollapalooza , HORDE, WOMAD, Laguna Seca Daze and Squaw Valley Summer Music Festival. I was a cameraman for the documentary of the first Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2002 and shot major music festivals in the Bay Area including Outside Lands, Treasure Island Music Festival and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
- One of my dream jobs was being invited to join the video crew for what became the Grateful Dead’s final summer tour in 1995.
I provided images from the pit of Jerry for the big screen at stadiums across the East Coast. If you recall the psychedelic images you saw on the screen during the 1994 and 1995 tours, I had the privilege of crafting those as well.
After practically a lifetime living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I migrated north to Oregon; I continue to shoot video and stills, and plan to dig deeper into my archive of concert photos.
< PREVIOUS || NEXT >
I took my first concert photos at the Cow Palace in Daly City on New Year’s Eve 1973 where the Allman Brothers Band hosted an extended night of southern rock along with the Marshall Tucker Band and the Charlie Daniels Band. Jerry Garcia, Billy Kreutzman and Boz Scaggs joined after midnight, playing into the wee hours.
I continued to shoot stills at shows in the San Francisco Bay Area and on the Monterey Peninsula, covering local acts and major artists, from venues like The Club of Monterey and the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, to Winterland Arena and Days on the Green at the Oakland Coliseum.
- My career trajectory took me into the world of video where I have worked since 1983 shooting music, entertainment and corporate video.
For the better part of my video production career, I had the incredible opportunity to shoot live concerts at the most venerable venues in the San Francisco Bay Area including the Old Fillmore, the Warfield Theater, the Great American Music Hall, The Independent and Bimbos 365 Club.
Much of my work ended up on DVD for notable artists including Neil Young, Phil Lesh & Friends, Paul McCartney, Richard Thompson, Trey Anastasio, Santana, Hot Tuna, Incubus, Los Lobos, Joe Satriani and Elvin Bishop, among others. For 24 seasons, I hoisted a video camera on my shoulder in the pit at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif., shooting hundreds of shows of every variety.
As a video camera operator, I documented music events for Bill Graham Presents in the early ’90s including the Tibetan Freedom Concert, Lollapalooza , HORDE, WOMAD, Laguna Seca Daze and Squaw Valley Summer Music Festival. I was a cameraman for the documentary of the first Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2002 and shot major music festivals in the Bay Area including Outside Lands, Treasure Island Music Festival and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
- One of my dream jobs was being invited to join the video crew for what became the Grateful Dead’s final summer tour in 1995.
I provided images from the pit of Jerry for the big screen at stadiums across the East Coast. If you recall the psychedelic images you saw on the screen during the 1994 and 1995 tours, I had the privilege of crafting those as well.
After practically a lifetime living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I migrated north to Oregon; I continue to shoot video and stills, and plan to dig deeper into my archive of concert photos.