No matter how well you try to plan or how hard you work to maintain order and organization, much of the arts and entertainment world is going to run on pure energy and chaos.
Fortunately, there are photographers like Norman’s Dylan Johnson to document it all and to capture that chaos and the raw, palpable energy of the scene in his lens, with his concert photography from all across America taking viewers into venues, green rooms, house shows, and DIY spaces and often right onto the stage and into the fray with the performers and the crowds themselves.
A self-described “Okie photographer,” born and raised in Norman, Johnson has gone to shoot major artists from Kendrick Lamar to Dolly Parton, and has seen his work featured by Vice, Rolling Stone, and even some national NPR outlets.
But it all began for him during a characteristically spontaneous stint living in California and hanging around friends in the Orange County music scene.
Dylan Johnson: We were just going to a bunch of their shows, and like cool theaters, and I had never really been to a lot of concerts before.
We were getting to go backstage, and I felt just really awkward, sort of like, you know, “what am I doing here?” One day I was like, “I'm just gonna go buy a camera so I, like, have a purpose.”
I don't think that I was good at it when I started out. I think I was just curious. I felt like I went to a lot of cool places, like around LA or just weird like DIY spots. And then, you know, after like, four years, it was time to go.
Brett Fieldcamp: But moving back to Norman didn’t mean leaving behind all the grit and grunge of his up-close and intimate concert photography.
Instead, he opened The Dojo, a short-lived photo studio, concert venue, and party space, all the while continuing to hone and expand his visual style through Oklahoma’s own underground DIY music scenes.
Dylan Johnson: It's one of these things, like, I feel like I studied for years on how to be a photographer before it all came together. Like it was one of these things, and when it finally did come together, I felt like I had gone to my own made-up photography school in my mind, where I liked other people's work, and then started a photo studio, knowing nothing about it, that had concerts in it, and just shot so many shows and watched people do it.
But I just kept photographing and, like, kept at it.
Brett Fieldcamp: When yet another burst of spontaneity found him living in New York City, Johnson took the opportunity to sharpen his skills in one of the world capitals of live music, taking a big chance just by blasting emails and asking for work directly.
Dylan Johnson: I started emailing music magazines like, “Hey, I've been shooting some shows. I don't really know how to word this, but like, I would love if, you know, I could do that for you guys.”
They would send an email out once a week, and it would be every show that was happening in New York City. So I just started going out and shooting a show every night that I possibly could.
What that led me to when I lived in New York was I let myself be very open to chaos. If some band is like, you know, “get up here on stage with us!” you're just going with the flow.
I definitely credit New York with being the place where I was able to, like, hone my skills and learn a different definition of what I thought professionalism was.
Brett Fieldcamp: It was that better understanding of the pace and personality of the professional world that he brought back with him to Norman, where he co-founded the Uncanny Art House as a way to help showcase other boundary-pushing artists and photographers.
But moving home also put him closer to his hometown’s biggest blowout weekend of the year, the Norman Music Festival, an event that he’s made an effort to attend and shoot each and every year of its existence, no matter where he was living or how far he had to travel to come home.
Now he and the Uncanny team have compiled some of his favorite shots from across nearly two decades of the festival into his first-ever photo book, “NMF” by Dylan Johnson, which saw its release - and its first run sell-out - both on the opening day of this year’s fest.
Dylan Johnson: Norman Music Festival is one of the best festivals I've ever been to, if not the best festival.
It's incredible. You're inside a venue, you're outside a venue, you're inside of a dive bar, there's a huge main stage over here, like everything's happening all at once.
And I've always known that I want to make photo books. Doing a book is so much more fun to me. It's hard to tell a story in like one photo, and who knows, I have tens of thousands of photos from Norman Music Festival, so I had to go through and just kind of try to choose my favorite ones.
Brett Fieldcamp: Johnson says that he’s never quite sure what’s next or where he might end up, but he continues just to learn new approaches and techniques as well as new ways of embracing the uncertainty and awkwardness that led him to start carrying a camera all those years ago.
Dylan Johnson: The energy maybe is what attracted me, capturing whatever was out there, this lifestyle.
I never stop, never put the camera down. I thought I was Charles Bukowski in my head, you know, I was like, “I'm gonna get a photo of this, like, this is like real life, man.”
I could commit to going to the show and embracing whatever chaos.
Brett Fieldcamp: You can check out Dylan Johnson’s work on his website at giantclickphotofactory.com and by following @giantclick on Instagram, and you can preorder the next run of his photo book “NMF” at uncannyarthouse.com.
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