(I am refraining from adding any more photos, that are not mine, until I am granted permission from Mark. I don’t need any trouble especially from him.)
Part Two
Throughout the years I would buy many rock magazines and when I would read the articles, some pictures would stand out to me. Sure enough, these pictures were taken by Mark Weiss so I got to know Mark’s photography style. I started challenging myself and would guess who the photographer was before looking at the name. Most of the time I got them right!
As I got older I would go to clubs and concerts and would take pictures of the bands. I was even dating a musician, so the rock and roll scene became a part of my life.
The Aquarian aka The East Coast Rocker is a weekly newspaper that gives information about who is playing at the different clubs all over New Jersey, the tri-state area and a little further. They also have a classified section for musicians looking for other musicians. Well, sometime around 1993, I was looking through the classifieds and came across an intern position for one of the greatest rock photographers that I had gotten to admire, Mr. Mark Weiss himself.
I was ecstatic and applied the first chance I got. Now, since this was in 1993, applying for a position was the old school way. There was no such thing as the internet and emails so I “snail mailed” my interest to Mark’s office and received a phone call a few weeks later. Long story short, I got the position!
Part 3
Now mind you, here is a photographer that I had admired since I was a young teenager and here it was about 13 years later so initially I was in awe, nervous and a bit intimidated by Mark but once I got to know him I felt more comfortable being around him. He was like a star to me which was really cool!
I worked for Mark for about a year or so. I had been promoted at my main job and they needed me to be available more often.
Marks office was at his home so I had gotten to know his family and had even been invited to his cousins’ baby shower. Of course I went! Marks garage was full of many cabinets that had slides from all the pictures he had photographed since around 1974 or so. The work I did was easy. I would put labels on slides; get the slides that he wanted to send to magazines, some office work, and maintaining organization and order of the slides.
Mark has an extensive list of musicians including Christina Aguilera, Bon Jovi, Blondie, Bruce Springsteen, Prince just to name only a few. He has also photographed for artists album/cd covers such as Twisted Sister, again, Christina Aguilera and Bon Jovi. (At the moment his main website seems to be having issues so I can’t go in to check exacts on other cd covers).
As far as the perspective topic we have to talk about, Mark’s perspective is amazing and he is excellent at what he does! His photographs are a mix of studio, concert and behind the scene shots as well as random.
Throughout the past 20+ years, since I have worked for him, I have run into him only a few times. The first time was about 15 years since I worked for him, in 2009, and it took a bit for him to remember who I was but when he did remember he said, “Yeah, I think I remember you now! You were one of the few that I did NOT have to fire!” I said, “Yep, that’s me!” I ran into him again a few months later when I attended the book signing of Ozzy’s book.
The last time I saw him was at the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert in 2016 and he remembered me. I had floor seats and saw him come in and looked to see where he went. I went to say hi and was chatting with him for a bit. A security guy came along and told me to go find my seat to which Mark said “She’s with me! She can stay!” The guy tried to argue and Mark then said, “I will take full responsibility.” To which the security guy then left. I thought that was so friggin’ awesome!
Even though I got side-tracked in my life, I have always held on to my passion for photography and taking pictures of bands. And even though I will not ever be as good as Mark Weiss, he is someone who I look up to and am inspired by!
His brief bio on how he became one of the most wanted rock/music photographers is on his websites.
Another website of Mark’s: https://www.rockpaperphoto.com/browse-by-photographer/mark-weiss
Archive of artists he has photographed: http://www.weissguygallery.com/archive/ (THIS IS TEMPORARILY DOWN)
Mark and myself (2009) This photo is signed by Mark and by Ozzy! (Ozzy is in the picture behind me)
Melissa's Milestone Blog 