Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 9, 1992 TAG: 9201100191
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
FOCUSED ON HIS WORK
Rock guitarist Pete Townshend's been shot. So have Rick James, The Cars, and Townshend's band The Who.Even Dan Quayle has found himself under sharp focus a time or two.
All shot by former Roanoker Chester Simpson.
And Simpson, punk band-turned-military photographer who shoots United Service Organization events on his vacations, is proud.
His last vacation, in fact, was a pre-Christmas visit to the Middle East with country music's Ricky Skaggs.
You could say Simpson, at 38, has made photography his art.
Simpson wanted to be a biologist. But, while at Virginia Western Community College, his flair for painting kept him behind the shutter, shooting his subjects, but only left him with half-finished canvases.
A professor once asked him why he didn't pursue photography instead; why didn't he paint with light and put the pencils and brushes away?
Simpson answered by compiling a picture portfolio and applying to the San Francisco Art Institute. He earned a scholarship to the institute's photography department, founded by renowned photographer Ansel Adams.
Then he saved 500 bucks and took off with a friend across the country - hitchhiking. "People pick you up and want to know where you've been, where you're going," he said.
And "they wish they could go with you," he laughs.
He was dropped off on the West Coast with $250 left, stacks of countryside prints and a keepsake of a lecture on the "evils of hitchhiking" delivered by "two little ladies [who gave them a ride] who could barely see over the dashboard."
Before moving out West, Simpson interned in the photography department of The Roanoke Times & World-News, where much of his time was spent as a lab technician. He finally got fed up in the lab, sneaked out with a camera and spent a Friday taking pictures. His processed work, which he laid on his boss's desk, was published the very next day.
Since, he has added Rolling Stone, People, Creem, Billboard and Newsweek to his lengthy list of publication credits. He now takes photographs for the Pentagram, a Washington military newspaper.
Simpson's days as a rock 'n' roll photographer began shortly after he started at the art institute. The punk rock scene was just developing when he moved to sunny California, where groups such as the Talking Heads and The Cars were just beginning to perform in the local nightspots.
He even manipulated his way backstage at a Starship and Grateful Dead concert, where he met Columbia Records photographer Jim Marshall.
Marshall "was a real arrogant guy," but turned out to be the "legend" who shot Woodstock and the likes of the Beatles and Janis Joplin, Simpson remembers. They later became friends.
After that concert, Simpson was sold on the rock scene, turned on by the easy access to the bands and the frenzied crowds that came to see them.
"It all seemed phenomenal, people slam dancing and stuff."
He saw his photos published in BAM, a California entertainment magazine. And he kept bugging Rolling Stone. Then he shot a member of the jazzy, bluesy trio, Hot Tuna, and called Rolling Stone again. This time, they listened. They featured the band and used his picture.
They even asked him to photograph The Who in 1981, the most exciting concert he's shot. There he was, shooting Pete Townshend, "one of my idols."
Add to his list: the Sex Pistols' final concert; publicity shots for Twisted Sister and Huey Lewis and the News; six album covers for punk rock bands and photographs of numerous other bands.
But the fun began to fizzle when what had been an easy-access industry began placing restrictions on shooting pictures during concerts. Finally, "bands got old after a number of years. I wanted to do politics."
Simpson moved back to Virginia, where "it's greener," and ended up in Washington.
In spite of the military censorship Simpson's work must pass, he said shooting for the military gives him more creative freedom. Many military and news photographers "want to get the same damn expression," he said.
"They're going to get that shot, so why should I get it?"
Instead, while others in photography corps wait patiently for good spots on the White House lawn, Simpson devises more clever ways to see an event - shooting from a helicopter or informally after the event.
Once, he asked Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney where he got his cowboy boots. "Of course he said Texas, but he asked me where I got my bolo," Simpson said.
And Simpson got the shot he wanted: eye-to-lens contact.
Simpson's experience is a fresh approach for the military anyway, he says. Often military photographers are service members with only a crash course in photography.
Simpson's first USO tour was to Egypt in December 1990 with LaToya Jackson. Though he found her lip-synched performance to be "pretty hokey," he was more than willing to accept his next assignment in Germany and England with rhythm-and-blues artist Jeffrey Osborne.
He also accepted the invitation to visit the Persian Gulf in October with a group of retired major-league baseball players and again in December for the Ricky Skaggs tour.
This latest transition from rock to country was easy for Simpson because, as a Roanoker, he religiously went to the annual Galax Fiddler's Convention.
He said the best part of the USO tour is being a part of something that makes people happy.
The troops he just visited aren't the ones who flew the planes and dropped the bombs; Genuinely wanting to give some of his talent back, Simpson participates in a Washington community volunteer program, the "Shooting Back Project." He and other photographers visit homeless shelters where they teach the kids to take pictures and allow them to shoot whatever they want. they're the clean-up crew. They're still "Any Soldier," he explained, and they still need our support.
Perhaps Simpson's desire to lift the spirits of others, which isn't limited to his tours with the USO, is the fruit of some not-so-scholarly advice offered by Ansel Adams during his San Francisco school days.
After inviting a class to his house, setting up the bar and claiming them as his friends to his wife, Adams said: "Just always remember to help someone else who's starting out."
Genuinely wanting to give some of his talent back, Simpson participates in a Washington community volunteer program, the "Shooting Back Project." He and other photographers visit homeless shelters where they teach the kids to take pictures and allow them to shoot whatever they want.
"Part of the problem with homelessness, especially with families, is little kids don't know why they're there," says Simpson.
So when he processes the kids' film, Simpson is amazed at how easily they catch on to the art of photography and how brightly and happily their pictures speak.
He believes God gave everybody a talent. "You just have to find that talent," he says.