Music is a personal experience. Paul Natkin’s gift as a photographer has been the ability to turn these singular moments into a shared encounter for every viewer. Sure, he’s traveled with the Rolling Stones, he once made Johnny Cash laugh and he’s befriended Buddy Guy. That’s bright lights, big city stuff. Yet, Paul’s career is grounded in a gritty Chicago ethic. He’s a connector. He is 5’2” and back in the day he lugged three Nikon cameras through a concert. Paul always delivers from the shadows. His hustle and moxie have made his work known worldwide.
Paul estimates he has shot pictures of 4,500 artists since he launched his career in 1976.
In 1983 Paul shot the metal-rock gods Motorhead enjoying lunch at a McDonald’s near Wrigley Field, he has been a staff photographer for Farm Aid and Oprah Winfrey and he once used three rolls of film to shoot blues legend John Lee Hooker sitting alone in a trailer at the Arlington Park Race Track before a 1998 appearance as part of the Guinness Fleadh Festival.
Paul Natkin was born on Dec. 31, 1951, in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. His father Robert was a gunner photographer for the Army Air Force in World War II. Robert would also become the official photographer for the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA).
After the war, Robert married Judy Lewis, a product photographer. In 1963 she took Paul to his first concert: Judy Collins. Collins had just recorded “Turn!, Turn!, Turn! (To Everything There is a Season.)” At the time Judy Lewis was measuring and cutting fabrics at Vogue Fabrics in Evanston. Robert’s photography career had become dormant as he had turned his interests to home building in Chicago neighborhoods. After a 20-year break, Robert decided to resurrect his career. He returned to the CHA neighborhoods to update his visions. He also began shooting the 1971-72 Chicago Bulls on a tip from his friend Ben Bentley, a former editor at Sepia magazine.
Paul accompanied his father to Bulls games at the Chicago Stadium and that’s where he began his photography career. “You have to set the stage,” Paul once told me. “That’s the most important thing I learned there.” Natkin moved forward to shoot the Chicago Bears, the Cubs, and the Chicago Aces tennis team.
In May 1976 Paul was shooting a late afternoon tennis match at Northwestern University. He turned on the radio and heard that Bonnie Raitt was appearing at the nearby Cahn Auditorium. “I figured if I could get into any sporting event, I’m going to figure out how to b.s. my way into this concert,” Paul said. He trudged to the auditorium door with his gear and planned to tell security he was shooting for Rolling Stone magazine. “Everything in the rock n’ roll business is a lie,” he said. And he was merrily sent through security. Paul took a lot of Raitt pictures that night but never sold any of them.
A lifelong blues fan, Paul’s first media sale was a March 17, 1977 Muddy Waters concert photo at the Auditorium Theater that appeared in the Chicago Reader. Natkin also became friends with Reader music critic Don McLeese, who later became rock critic for the Sun-Times. Paul and McLeese networked on Reader assignments.
Paul learned about “The Decisive Moment” by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson from his father. A former painter, Cartier- Bresson believed every event has a decisive moment. “It doesn’t matter what the event is,” Paul explained to me. “It could be two people sitting down for dinner. There is going to be a decisive moment. And you have to capture that moment. I harp about it all the time. The basic premise of photography is not about shooting a ton of pictures.
It’s about shooting a couple of really good ones.”
Paul likes to cite a photography rule in the music business: if somebody climbs up on something there are only two ways they are going to come down. It’s either going to look cool or awkward. He said, “So, if somebody climbs up the drum riser, you get ready. You have to put on a wide enough lens so you see the ground. And then you wait for them to jump. They’re not going to crawl off the drum riser.” That’s the decisive moment. Paul recalled, “That’s how I got the best shot of Pete Townshend (jumping in the air and playing guitar at the Who’s May 3, 1980 concert at the International Amphitheater in Chicago.)
Paul has been so entrenched in the music business he has morphed into a survivor. When legacy acts pass away it is not uncommon to see a Paul Natkin photograph in a news report. The Seattle-based Getty Images has a library of more than 477 million images and they are the agent for Paul’s pictures. Media outlets peruse Getty Images for artist photographs. “I don’t have to do anything,” he said. “It’s weird. I saw a thing on CBS News with list of all the famous people that died in 2023. There was my Tony Bennett picture full screen. It happens all the time now although it’s something I’m not excited about. I saw my Tina Turner picture on TV. I had a picture of Charlie Watts on the cover of Parade magazine after he died. (And now Parade magazine itself is dead.) Tom Petty, Prince. Merle Haggard. Aretha Franklin, but Tina Turner was the biggest.” Paul’s work has appeared in exhibits at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Logan Center in Chicago and the Elmhurst (Il.) Historical Museum.
Generosity of spirit is another key component in Paul’s toolbox. He has mentored younger photographers , he tells younger musicians a thing or two about the music business and he has donated his time to Farm Aid. Paul shot 25 of the first 27 Farm Aid concerts.
Paul is a colorful Chicago thread who calls on American rapper Talib Kweli’s comment that “The root of community is unity.” Paul has served on Chicago non-profits and has been a road manager for the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson and singer-songwriter Alice Peacock. He has never been married but has become known for his community of friends who come to his house to watch Bears games during the long Chicago football seasons.
It was Paul’s idea to create this Photography Is Art initiative to shed light on Chicago photojournalists and to preserve photographer’s work for generations to come. “We are a bunch of great photographers that have never gotten the acclaim we deserve,” he said. “Recognition for our work, not so much for us. A lot of our work is buried. We shouldn’t have to explain what we do for a living.”
Photography is art. And good art is as personal as music. Paul leaned back on a sofa in his northwest side studio and explained, “Photography is an art and a craft. There’s a technical end that you have to master before you can take good pictures consistently. I used to come home, develop my film and I’d be amazed there were actual images there. I’d hold it up to the light and go, ‘I got something!’ Now I know I got what I’m going to get. You take the craft out of the equation and it becomes an art. But there’s still a craft element to it, especially with digital now.”
Like any art, after you learn the craft you become yourself. And when you see one of Paul Natkin’s images, you get a sense of the splendor in all the songs he has heard.
By Dave Hoekstra
