By Ron Evans

In the dimly lit clubs, basements and dives of Seattle during the late 80s and early 90s, a musical revolution was brewing. In the midst of this gleefully grimey scene stood Charles Peterson (probably in flannel and ripped jeans), a visionary photographer whose lens was right there to capture the raw energy and authenticity of the emerging punk and grunge movement. Peterson’s iconic black and white images not only documented the explosive rise of bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees and Soundgarden but also became synonymous with the very essence of the scene itself.

Peterson’s work went beyond mere documentation; it became a catalyst in the global recognition of grunge music. Peterson offered a visual narrative that resonated deeply with fans, musicians and labels alike. His photographs not only adorned magazine covers and album sleeves but also became windows into the often turbulent souls of the era’s musical icons. His work played an immeasurable role in selling the entire world on what was happening in Seattle. Now, looking back — these images are impossible to separate from the music and culture of that time. His body of work does what any good artist’s does; it encapsulates the time and place the artist calls home, in their unique style and voice.

Peterson’s latest book, aptly titled Nirvana, serves as another testament to his enduring impact. Featuring a collection of images of the band performing live over their short but monumental career, the book not only commemorates Nirvana’s legacy but also pays homage to Peterson’s role in shaping the visual identity of a genre that continues to reverberate through contemporary music. I was incredibly excited to chat with Peterson on this new book and about his incredible career as a photographer.

Charles Peterson backstage with a few pals.

It seems to me that you have essentially been taking photos your whole life.

It really started when I was about 12 years old, so yeah it’s kind of all I’ve ever known. I had a few miscellaneous jobs in photo labs outside of high school and during college. So that’s what I was doing for a living before freelancing.

How did you get involved with shooting the live shows? Was that something that you were pursuing or did you just kind of end up finding yourself in that role?

Yeah, it was just kind of bringing two passions together really. My love of music and photography and of course meeting all those cats in the scene like Mark Arm (Mudhoney) and Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) and Bruce Pavitt (co-founder of Sub Pop Records), and Jeff Ament (Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam) and whatnot. I was just wanting to document what my friends were doing, essentially. And to kind of replicate what I saw from scenes elsewhere in New York and London.

So were you just showing up and experimenting with your camera at that point or were you being hired by the bands to capture the shows?

Oh god no, not at that time. I was really just experimenting, yeah. And you know…I had been taking pictures for years but it’s a whole different thing inside a dark, sweaty club and people are going nuts all around you so, it took some experimenting and that was when the bands were new and they were experimenting too. And a bit later when they started putting out records they needed images for the covers and promo so they asked me to do that. And then a little money started trickling in. But I still had to hang onto the day job at the photo labs. But you know…it was beer money at the time and that was great.

Such a perfect time and place for you to be with your camera - it was a big part of what we all saw outside of Seattle as the scene was blowing up. Once the music was getting some notice and the tours started happening, were you often on the road with bands to chronicle those shows as well?

Yeah, not extensively, but I went up and down the west coast with Nirvana and Tad and then back to New York, here and there, or London. In ‘96 I went to parts of Europe with Pearl Jam. And I think it was ‘93 when I went to Japan with some of the Sub Pop bands. So yeah, just enough to give it kind of that little bit of global flavor, for sure.

As all of that was all starting to blow up, was there ever a moment where you’re like, “I have all these images of these bands when they were playing in these little tiny clubs and now all of a sudden they’re playing bigger and bigger venues. Damn, my stock just went up!” Did you ever look at it that way or did you just kind of keep doing business as usual?

A bit of both I guess. I started getting more calls around that time, unfortunately it was often after someone had died. Magazines and other media looking to do stories on the latest tragic death, right? But yeah, I certainly came to realize what I had and that’s why I started putting out some of the books. But I was always just chugging along with the assignments as they came in so I really didn’t have time to dig into the archives too deeply. But now I have more time and so that’s what I’ve been doing. And the more time passes the more important all that work becomes as a historical document.

I imagine you have tons of negatives and files in various formats in storage. Do you have a pretty good idea at this point of what you have in there? Or is it still possible to find some surprises?

I have a relatively good idea of what I have in a general sense, but you know digital technology has allowed me to pull stuff off of proof sheets that I’ve seen but I’d be like…oh. Man. I don’t wanna tackle all this in the dark room. That’s just a whole different beast than scanning it and working on it in Photoshop.

When digital first started popping up, it was pretty pathetic. It looked like ass, it was insanely expensive and the cameras left much to be desired in terms of manual settings. But…of course it caught up quickly. Were you hesitant for any reason to jump into digital once it started getting good? Any kind of moral or artistic dilemmas? Or were you excited about it early on?

No, it took me a while to embrace it actually. When everyone else was out buying the early Canon digital cameras for like…$7000 I was paying $7000 on a film scanner. So it took me about four or five years beyond most people to get into digital.

Was that more based on you having such a love for film after spending so many years developing the skills in the analog world? Or did you just have trouble with the quality?

It was a combination of both I suppose, but really I was just being a bit of a stubborn luddite. I dragged my feet on it.

Well I’m not much of a real photographer, but many of our readers are and it would anger them if I didn’t ask what kind of equipment you are shooting with these days.

Mostly these days I shoot with a Leica M10. I have both the color and the black and white or monochrome M10. And so that’s a camera that shoots black and white only files. And that’s what I shoot a lot of these days if I shoot bands, such as the ones that you saw at Easy Street Records for Krist Novoselic’s new band the other night. Those were shot at like 50,000 ISO. And you can still get very usable and clean images.

That’s interesting, I would have assumed you were now shooting in color and desaturating and processing for black and white later.

I do that sometimes too. And I do shoot color from time to time. Even back in the day I shot some color. But yeah, these monochrome cameras have no color sensors. There’s no going back. I have had some clients ask “Can you give us these but in color?” No. [Laughs]

Was black and white always an aesthetic choice for you or were there other reasons for that choice in the early days?

I would say it was a combination of aesthetics and certainly financial reasons behind it. It was a functional choice as well, because you could very easily develop and print black and white images anywhere compared to color. Also when you’re using a flash a lot — which I did when shooting those shows — you can recover a lot later. Blown out highlights or, you know, fixing shadows. There’s just a lot you can do in the darkroom with making it more dramatic and then you don’t have to worry about weird color shifts.

Dave Grohl - Seattle Center Coliseum, 1992

It’s hard to imagine these iconic images in color, I’m flipping through your first book, Screaming Life, right now and I’m looking at this amazing shot of Mark Lanegan in your old car in the rearview.

Oh yeah, I love that one.

His photos always had so much presence even though he was never really emoting in any typical way.

Yeah, Mark was always one of my favorites to work with. Mudhoney too, those guys were always fun and we got some great stuff together.

It’s hard for me to pick a favorite shot of yours but I think the cover image for Screaming Trees’ Change Has Come takes first place in my heart. And it’s great because it’s mostly hair. But so much of the energy of that band comes across in that shot.

That’s one of my alltime favorites too.

I also really love the shot that ended up being the cover for Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff EP. Which is also mostly hair.

The shot for Soundgarden’s Louder Than Love is great too, and also mostly hair.

Yeah, I guess I have this hair thing. Which is ironic as a bald guy. But yeah that’s definitely one of my favorite shots as well.

So now you are all digital all the time?

Yeah, and adding the modern technology with what I shot decades ago is what really makes things like the Nirvana book more doable. I’ve been able to pull out things that I would have just passed over before. You asked about surprises in the archive earlier, and yeah, there are things that pop up — certain images that take on a different importance now that time has passed. Things that didn’t make the ‘greatest hits’ if you will, but looking at them now I can say, “hmmm, that’s actually pretty good.”

I can say from a fan’s perspective that’s really exciting because for you…it’s just the outtakes or b-roll over your career but for us, it’s a never before seen shot of Nirvana. Or a new candid pic of Mark Lanegan.

That’s true, and there’s a lot of that kind of stuff with Nirvana in the new book. The other thing is I was always considered a high-hit shooter, that’s one of the reasons I got so much work. I could be relied on to get the shot in most cases. Which is great but it can also make it a little frustrating in the editing room because I end up with so much stuff to go through. And I do understand that people like seeing the outtakes if you will, but to me it’s like — oh boy here’s another shot from Raji’s or the Hub Ballroom. A lot of them are really just slightly different than the ones everyone knows from those shows. But what I do get excited about are all these more obscure bands that I come across. Again, stuff I never really had a reason to blow up but it’s cool to see them all these years later.

That’s an interesting part of that whole scene as well. All those bands that never got to that next level of success but they were there playing the same venues and the same gigs.

Yeah, so many over the years. I have some fantastic pictures of The Fluid and Seaweed and stuff like that. But one of the things that I have is this thing where…it has to be artistically sound. It has to advance the artistry. I have no interest in just being a trainspotter, you know? That really came into play with how I put this new Nirvana book together. They can’t just be new, unseen images, they have to be special in some way of course.

Let’s talk about the new Nirvana book. You have published other books in the past, many of which include your most iconic shots of Nirvana — what was your motivation to put out this new collection? Would you call it a bit of a complete Nirvana collection?

No, not complete at all really, it’s about 90 images over 165 pages. But the first draft was closer to 300. It was really just having the time and the technology to go through all those archives I mentioned. But we ended up with so much. So the publisher and I decided to streamline it by pulling all of the backstage stuff, the candid shots and portraits so that it’s really about a Nirvana show. Like one entire show experience, in images. Over many shows of course. There’s no real narrative, it’s more of an experiential thing. I’ve broken some of the titles down in a setlist sort of way. I gotta say though, I never really wanted to do just a Nirvana book…you know, Kurt was somewhat embarrassed at times about being such a huge rockstar and I thought that would be honoring him.

Well he was a big supporter of you. As mentioned, I have a copy of your book Screaming Life, and in the foreword you write that not long before Kurt died you ran into him and you told him you were working on your first book. And his response was something like, well finally the right person is doing it. It was really sweet. It was a stamp of approval because he knew you were the real deal, and I personally think that translates to his blessings in doing this new book as well.

Yeah. I just needed to find my way into the book because I never felt like I had enough images to do a full history of Nirvana or anything like that. And I didn’t wanna do a ‘band book,’ you know? So it took me a while to even figure out how I was gonna approach it. Then it dawned on me, it’s just about the music. It just has to be about the experience of the music, right? And how my images relate to the viewer, and what it was to experience it live and to be there.

And it’s a good snapshot of the culture itself, too. And even all these venues that are long gone, it’s all encapsulated and preserved. You can almost smell it. This is all enhanced by your famous black and white imagery because there’s almost a ghostliness to it. It’s great to see those old venues. And sad to see those old venues.

For sure. So, once we had the images and the concept of the book I wanted to work with my friend Michelle Dunn Marsh who owns an art print and publishing company, Minor Matters. And we talked about doing some sort of retrospective pre-pandemic but I could just never get my head around it so I dropped the ball for a while. But then, my family went out of town for a couple weeks so I decided to print like 300 images out and I made little rabbit trails all over the house with all these shots just looking them over, trying to find my way through them.

You printed them all out and manually looked them over?

Oh yeah, that’s the only way to do a book. Talk to any photographer that’s done a book, you just get way too lost on a computer with thousands of images.

I love that your family was on vacation while you were staring at photos on the floor.

They were all on a beautiful island off the coast of France and I was home with the dog editing a Nirvana book. I initially did it alone. I just put on Nirvana for two weeks and got to work. But then Michelle jumped in and really helped steer it into its final form. I was starting to overthink it and second guess myself. You know, well…maybe we don’t have enough ‘pretty’ photos of Kurt and maybe there’s not enough whatever…she was just like, well if you wanna do a ‘band book’ we aren’t the right place to print that. We don’t do those, you can take this just about anywhere else and they’ll be happy to print it. I said no, no, no…I wanna make an art book. I’m an artist! So she was great in pulling it all into a focused vision.

Good because I 100% see your work as fine art.

Well you know, we have a show at the Tacoma Art Museum in October and we will be exhibiting some of the photos from this book.

Fine art confirmed! I wanna go back to the era before digital. As a high-shot photographer in the analog days, I’m sure you got used to a certain amount of ‘money shots’ if you will. But with no way of knowing what you got until you went into the darkroom and developed it — it was a bit of a mystery. Can you recall a few times where you were in the darkroom…chemicals doing their thing…you standing by patiently. Then as you saw an image fading into existence you were like...holy shit. I got that!

The infamous headspin shot. Nirvana at the Commodore Ballroom in 1991.

Certainly, the one with Kurt spinning on his head upside down.

Defying all logic and physics.

Right? Pulling that negative out of the tank and holding it up to the light…

I have chills.

And of course, the stage diver at the Hub Ballroom (below). Both of those, I knew, were incredible shots as soon as they started developing.

Well, on the other side of that question — I’m sure there were times where something went wrong and you didn’t get the shots, but are there any shots that haunt you that you didn’t quite catch?

Honestly, the shots I regret the most are the ones I never even took. A lot of photographers will tell you that. It’s not so much, oh that one just didn’t turn out, as much as — I wish I would have picked my camera up and snapped that shot. Like Nirvana, pre-show at Raji’s. Kurt and Krist huddled on the floor with broken guitar parts from the previous gig all around them, screwing together new guitars. I almost got my camera out. And then I was called away. That haunts me a bit. I still have that image in my head.

Charles Peterson’s Nirvana will be on view at Tacoma Art Museum from Oct. 5, 2024, to May 25, 2025. The book can be purchased at minormattersbooks.com or megamart.subpop.com.