Photographer Jonathan Rach’s Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral was recently on display in New York City and is currently in Los Angeles. The exhibit (presented by Behind The Gallery) showcases images Rach took during Trent Reznor and Co.’s Self Destruct Tour in support of 1994’s The Downward Spiral.
MAGNET photographer Evan Albuck caught up with Rach at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in NYC.
What about the content you’ve made with Nine Inch Nails differentiates them from the work you’ve done with the likes of David Bowie, Janet Jackson and Guns N’ Roses?
What makes this one stand out for me is it was the first high-profile artist that I worked with. I was on this tour longer than any of the other ones. I was out for, like, two and a half years. It was very intense. It was very monumental what was happening. I just feel like I was at the right place at the right time to capture true iconic images, part of music history, music culture.
What specifically in this exhibit do you want to shine the most light on? Is there any piece here that you put on a pedestal?
There’s actually two, because I feel the shows were very dynamic. So the one called “Trent Kicking The Keys” is very high energy, very agro. Then the other one is the boy’s face. That one’s called “Hurt Live,” and that was the other end of it, very somber, very sparse. So to me, those two represent the spectrum.
What is your advice for up-and-coming concert photographers and video creators?
It’s all about the emotions, the emotional feel of it. It’s not about technology. I’ve learned that it’s really about feeling the emotional aspect of the image. If you just kind of just try and follow that, I think you’ll find your photographs will become more powerful. I was not trained technically on any of this, so I was very lucky to be in the right place. Fight to get that position being in the right place at the right time. That’s everything. If you feel like a band is going to become something groundbreaking and they’re nobody now, get in there now and stick with them. With somebody who’s already established, maybe try and shoot them in a way that no one else has thought about shooting them. It’s better to fail in doing something different rather than to do the same, old, routine thing. But you could tell when somebody tries to do something for the sake of just being different and it’s missing the emotional connection. So those two really have to come together or else you don’t really have anything. I would say just emotionally feel it, and that’s your image.
