Lynn Goldsmith calls me from a New York number at 1:30 p.m. on what, from her end, sounds like a busy Saturday afternoon –– the background white noise can only be described as hustle and bustle. I, sprawled on my twin XL bed, am having an evidently lazier Saturday afternoon. To add to the lethargic ambiance, it’s muggy out –– terribly unmotivating weather that’s only a subtle precursor to the Bay Area heatwave to hang thick in a few days.
I love the digital age sometimes, especially when it fits into my lazy Saturday aesthetic. And as it turns out, so does photographer Lynn Goldsmith, whose digital age repertoire spans from the 1970s to now –– though for more reasons than being able to take calls in bed.
If you count the early years, it’s more accurate to consider her portfolio dating back to the 60s.
“I’ve made pictures since I was, I don’t know, five years old,” Goldsmith recalls, “My father was a very serious amateur photographer. So I went out with him and had a little Brownie” — the Kodak camera released in 1900, not the baked good — “to take pictures with him, and then also being in the dark room with him.”
Goldsmith’s beginnings in blurry preschool images of rocks, toes and bugs paved the way for her career take-off around her late 20s and early 30s. In the early 70s, she started directing for a smorgasbord of broadcasting channels (namely ABC and Joshua TV), eventually diving into band management.
And who in the entertainment industry doesn’t dip a toe into music? Ever the avant-garde, Goldsmith’s dip under the pseudonym Will Powers featured pitched-down vocals, techno buzz and satirical edge. Her only album under the alias pokes fun at self-help entrepreneurs who preach personal growth via self-actualizing “willpower.”
So one can say that she’s always been a digital age pioneer, but the multimedia practice that lands her a tick on the timeline? Her photography, which she began doing full-time in the mid 1970s.
After all, it’s her comfort place. “(Because of my) very early childhood connection to what the camera is, oftentimes, when I am not necessarily feeling comfortable in a place, I know that having my camera will enable me to experience it in a way that’s really enjoyable.”
It’s also her passport, as she refers to it. “My experiences with the camera have to do with meeting all different kinds of people: people who are not famous, as well as people who are well known for their work.”
And it’s even her lifeline. “You know, the camera connects me to the idea of love, being with people and doing something fun.”
I can tell Lynn is fun to be around, just from her voice. She giggles when she reminisces, and she isn’t afraid to be a little feisty. “You might have not gotten that quote correctly,” she clarifies when I ask her what she meant by saying “Before Easter After,” Goldsmith’s collaborative coffee table book with Patti Smith, is a sacred object for fans. “You know, we’re lovers of books, Patti and I. Any book that I do I consider to be a sacred object.”
Her photographic subjects pick up on her joie de vivre — it’s hard not to catch the energy of someone while you’re staring down the barrel of their lens. Though I think Goldsmith’s peppy laugh makes the whole ordeal much less intimidating, evident in her lengthy list of successful celebrities she shot with.
Yet, it’s her work with Smith that has cemented her place in entertainment history. The two have collaborated since before Smith was a household name, their careers closely entwined. Even so, it’s not just work, it’s play. “When we did start making pictures together, from the very first moment, Patti and the Patti Smith band just felt like old friends, right?” Right.
Though she can’t really recall where they met, the 50 years spent as close coworkers and closer friends give her an idea of where they stand now. I ask her what it feels like to have a bond founded on artistic common ground. Once again, she corrects me.
“I don’t know if it’s built so much around creativity as it is in that we are girlfriends who can
complain about things,” she reflects. “After 50 years, it’s a girlfriend who’s almost a sister. You become friends with people who are like-minded and who inspire you, and who you inspire.”
Phew, they’re just like us. Except with more than half a century spent crafting the culture we consume. The lovechild of a 50-year friendship between creatives, “Before Easter After,” is to be released Oct. 22 of this year. And despite our shared predisposition to digital age convenience, we can both agree this is one thing you might need to hold in your hands.
