It is rare for napaman (that’s me!) to crow about my own achievements in this space; my site is typically a forum for superlative wine and food discoveries in Napa Valley and beyond.
But such a wonderful, personal, thing happened last week that I wanted to share it with readers.
Backgrounder:
In May 1969, while I was an on-camera reporter and weekend night news anchorman at CFTO TV, in Toronto, Canada’s largest TV station, I decided that I wanted to attend an upcoming Jimi Hendrix concert, but didn’t just want to buy a ticket — I wanted to get up CLOSE to the rock icon. I mean really close — my belly pressed tight against the stage.
As such, I called the Toronto Telegram, one of the city’s newspapers, spoke to the news desk and obtained a press pass to attend the concert and photograph Jimi at Maple Leaf Gardens.
I went to the Gardens… . I edged up to the very foot of the stage and shot a roll of black and white, Plus-X film.
The images I captured were dramatic and from small prints, which I have shown to rock ‘n roll gallery owners in the US over the years, I was told by these specialists that my shots are among the most memorable of Jimi they’ve ever seen.
But I never commercialized my prints — just showed them around for feedback and comment.
After the October 2017 wild fires in Napa Valley, where I live, I grew concerned about 20,000 African images, which I have in my files that were still in their original state — never digitized, or backed up in anyway. (For years, I lived and photographed in Africa, where I tackled professional photographic assignments and wrote as a freelance foreign correspondent for numerous periodicals.)
Last year, to secure my legacy of photos, I hired a technician to digitize 20,000 images from my former African life.
However, by accident, one of the rolls of negs, which I gave to the technician, was the roll of Jimi Hendrix’ performance in Toronto, from May 1969.
Once I had the digitized images… I uploaded them last month to a website, which the technician created… and within days, a curator for the Jimi Hendrix estate made contact, asking if the estate might acquire the entire 29-image roll of negatives for its permanent photo library.
I am so excited! My Jimi images are now permanently housed in the world’s top Jim Hendrix private library, operated by Experience Hendrix, just outside Seattle.
The irony of this story — and the take-away message — is that photographers and journalists should never, not ever, give up marketing their photos or stories … because I just sold my Jimi Hendrix photos ALMOST 50 YEARS TO THE DAY THEY WERE TAKEN!
How much fun is all this! I just had to share my joy.
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