Almost Famous Since 1992
I adopted this tagline after seeing Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous. Like the main character William Miller, I embarked on a Rock & Roll journey as a teenager and because of this a lot of people said I reminded them of him.
When I would tell friends a crazy story that had just happened to me, I would often hear “You’re famous!”, to which I always replied “No I’m not. I work with famous people'“, which makes me Almost Famous.
Why 1992? Because the journey began on October 12, 1992.
I want to thank my Dad for teaching me how to use a camera when I was a little kid and always inspiring me to create visual art, my Mom for encouraging me every step of the way, and both of them for instilling in me the love of music.
Heavily influenced by music videos like Wanted Dead Or Alive and Paradise City, I would transport myself on tour with rock bands in my mind when listening to them on my Sony Sports Walkman. The yellow one of course.
That first photo pass in 1992 was a gift, allowing me to live out all of those dreams and so many more that I could have never even imagined. Thank you to every musician, promoter, record label, manager, photo editor, and everyone else who gave me opportunities along the way.
About AlmostFamous.ca
To commemorate 30 years as a Rock & Roll photographer, I did a series of posts on social media using #DRP30. I was going to pick my favourite photo from each year and write a few words about it. I started on the anniversary date (October 12, 2022) and thought if I did a couple each day it would last until the end of the month.
Once I started digging through the archives and scanning film, I realized this was a mammoth task. It was also impossible to pick just one photo to represent an entire year.
The first few stories were pretty long because they set up the rest of my career. The response was overwhelming and I felt the need to maintain the same level of detail in each story.
In the end I wrote more than 30,000 words and posted 800 photos over the span of ten weeks!
Getting into the routine of writing a story for each post was really great exercise for my brain, but to be honest it was emotionally exhausting too. But at the end of the day I got to relive a ton of incredible experiences and share them with you, and that feels awesome.
When the whole thing was said and done I wanted a place for those stories and photos to live. Here we are.